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LEPROSY 


AND  THE 


Charity  of  the  Church 


BY 

Rev.  L.  W.  Mulhane 


"And  Jesus  making  answer  said  to  them:  Go  and  relate  to  John  what  you  have 
heard  and  seen. 

The  blind  see,  the  lame  walk,  the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead 
rise  again,  the  poor  have  the  gospel  preached  to  them."    St.  Matthew  XI. — 2  and  3. 


CHICAGO     NEW  YORK 

D.  H.  MCBRIDE  a  CO, 


Copyright,  1896, 
By  L.  W.  MULHANE. 


DEDICATED   TO   MY    FRIENDS 

OF  THE 

MEDICAL   FRATERNITY 

WITH  WHOM   MY    RELATIONS    FOR    OVER    FIFTEEN    YEARS    HAVE 

BEEN   OF    THE    MOST    PLEASANT    KIND,    FORMED,    AS  THEY 

WERE,    AMID  THE  SAD  AND   VARIED  CIRCUMSTANCES 

OF    HOSPITAL,    PEST-HOUSE   AND   SICK-ROOM. 


'■''God-like  is  the  physician  who  is  a  philosopher.'''' — Hippocrates. 
"The  philosopher  should  end  7vith  medicine,  the  'physician  begin  with  phi- 
losophy. ' ' — Aristotle. 

"'Honor  the  physician  for  the  need  thou  hast  of  him.''' — Ecclesiasticus, 
Ch.  xxxviii,  vs.  1. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arcinive 

in  2010  witii  funding  from 

Open  Knowledge  Commons 


http://www.archive.org/details/leprosycharityofOOmulh 


PREFACE. 

This  book  lays  no  claim  to  any  originality.  It 
is  merely  a  compilation  of  facts  picked  up  here  and 
there.  Portions  of  it  have  already  appeared  in  a 
pamphlet  issued  a  year  ago.  The  demand  for  the 
pamphlet  was  so  much  beyond  expectation  that  the 
compiler  was  induced  to  enlarge,  revise  and  add 
some  recent  information,  and  put  it  in  more  durable 
form.  He  hopes  his  readers  may  obtain  some  faint 
idea  of  the  awful  scourge  of  leprosy,  an  ancient 
and  yet  prevalent  disease,  and  of  the  heroic  work 
of  Charity  accomplished  by  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  Holy  Church  who  are  engaged  in  the  work  of 
caring  for  lepers  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  from 
Canada  to  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  and  from  Ice- 
land to  the  regions  of  India. 

Iv.  W.   MUIvHANE. 

Mt.  Vernon,  Ohio. 

Feast  of  The  Holy  Guardian  Angels,    1896. 


CONTENTS. 


PART  I. 

CHAPTER.  PAGE. 

I.     I,EPROSv  IN  Ancient  Times 13 

II.    Leprosy  in  the  Middee  Ages 19 

III.  Leprosy  in  Our  Day 24 

IV.  Leprosy  in  the  United  States 27 

V.     Leprosy  in  Louisiana.. 35 

VI.    The  Menace  oe  Leprosy 38 

VII.    Leprosy:  Different  Forms — How  Contracted- 
Can  it  be  Cured? 52 

VIII.    Leprosy  as  discussed  in  the  Pan-American  Med- 
icaid Congress 63 


PART  II. 

Chapter.  Page. 

I.  The  Care  oe  Lepers 73 

II.  The  Sandwich  Isi^ands 79 

III.  The  Trinidad  Leper  Coeony 110 

IV.  Canada  and  Iceeand : 116 

V.  In  Japan 118 

VI.    In  Madagascar 125 

VII.     In  South  America 130 

VIII.    In  India 133 

IX.    In  Louisiana 147 

Conclusion 154 

9 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Dead  of  the  Pi<ague ,. 21 

Father  Damien  and  his  Leper  Boys 23 

IvEPERS   IN    DaRCEY  ISI.AND,  VANCOUVER,  B.    C 25 

Hattie  AND  Hannah  Garey,  Lepers  near  New  Lexing- 
ton, Ohio 30 

TUBERCUI.AR  Leprosy  and  Anesthetic  Leprosy 45 

TuBERCui<AR  Leprosy 52 

Father  Damien,. 72 

Bird's-Eye  View  oe  Moi.okai 81 

Monument  to  Father  Damien  at  Kalaupapa 89 

The  Church  at  KaIvAmao,  Showing  the  Tree   Under 

Which  Father  Damien  is  Buried 84 

Father  Damien  the  Day  Before  his  Death 86 

Father  Damien's  Grave   at  Kalawao 92 

Major  Joseph  Dutton 94 

Father  Wendewn's  Church  at  Kai^aupapa 97 

Interior  of  the  Church  at  Kalaupapa.... 102 

The  Cemetery  at  Molokai 104 

The  Rev.  Father  Pamphile,  S  vS.  C  C 106 

Father  Conrardy , 107 

Two  Japanese  Lepers 119 

Leper  Colony  in  Madagascar 126 

House  for  the  Female  Lepers,  Mangalore,  India 135 

Group  of  Male  Lepers,  India " 138 

A  Group  of  Female  Lepers,  India 142 

Father  Muller  and  a  Little  Leper 143 


PART     1. 

LEPROSY. 

CHAPTER   I. 

LEPROSY   IN   ANCIENT  TIMES. 

Leprosy  seems  to  be  a  very  ancient  disease.  The 
13th  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Leviticus  treats  of  the 
law  concerning  leprosy  in  men  and  garments,  and 
the  14th  chapter,  of  the  rites  of  sacrifice  in  cleansing 
leprosy.  It  was  regarded  by  the  ancients  as  a  dis- 
ease peculiar  to  Egypt.  Herodotus  speaks  of  it  as 
existing  in  Persia.  Pliny  knew  of  it,  as  did  Diodorus. 
Lucretius  says:  "Leprosy  is  a  disease  born  in  Egypt 
along  the  waters  of  the  Nile,  and  nowhere  else."  The 
Hebrews  brought  it  with  them  from  their  Egyptian 
slavery  and  the  Mosaic  law  shows  how  dreadful  must 
have  been  its  ravages  and  how  great  the  terror  which 
it  excited.  Regarding  it  as  a  disease  sent  directly  by 
God,  they  required  that  the  person  supposed  to  be 
infected  should  go  and  show  himself  to  the  priest, 
and,  if  in  his  opinion,  the  disease  was  leprosy,  he 
was  declared  unclean  and  at  once  separated  from  the 
people.     So   strictly  was  the   Mosaic   law   observed 

that  even  kings  afflicted  with  the  disease  were  ex- 

13 


14  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

pelled  from  their  palaces  and  shut  out  from  society,  as 
is  mentioned  concerning  Ozias  in  the  last  verses  of 
the  26th  chapter  of  the  Second  Book  of  Paralipo- 
menon.  Outside  the  gates  of  the  cities  and  in  se- 
cluded spots  were  usually  found  leper  villages,  where 
these  outcasts  of  society  dragged  out  their  wretched 
lives,  depending  upon  their  own  labors  and  the  alms 
of  the  charitable  for  their  living,  as  we  find  recorded 
of  the  four  lepers  outside  of  the  city  of  Samaria,  as 
mentioned  in  the  Fourth  Book  of  Kings,  Chap.  VII, 
and  of  the  ten  who  came  to  Jesus  Christ  asking  to 
be  healed — St.  Luke,  Chap.  XVII.  No  class  of 
people  were  free  from  its  ravages.  Chap.  V,  Fourth 
Book  of  Kings,  describes  to  us  Naaman,  the  great 
general  and  valiant  man,  as  being  a  leper,  how  he 
was  cured  by  washing  himself  seven  times  in  the 
River  Jordan,  and  how  Giezi  on  the  same  occasion 
went  forth  from  the  presence  of  Eliseus  stricken  with 
the  disease.  When  a  leper  was  cured,  he  came  to 
the  gate  of  the  city  and  was  examined  by  the  priest 
as  to  whether  he  was  truly  healed  or  not.  After  this 
he  went  up  to  the  temple,  took  two  pure  birds,  made 
a  wisp  with  a  cedar  branch  and  another  of  hj^ssop, 
tied  together  with  a  scarlet  ribbon  made  of  wool ;  an 
earthen  vessel  was  filled  with  water  and  one  of  these 
birds  was  fastened  alive  to  the  wisp.  The  leper  who 
was  cured  killed  the  other  bird  and  let  the  blood  of 
it  run  into  the  vessel  filled  with  water.  Then  the 
priest  took  the  wisp  with  the  live  bird,  dipped  both 
in  the  water  tinged  with  the  blood  of  one  of  the  birds 
and  sprinkled  the  leper  with  it.  After  this  the  live 
bird  was  let  loose  and  the  person  healed  and  purified 


Leprosy  in  Ancient   Times.  15 

in  this  manner  was  again  allowed  to  mingle  with  his 
friends  and  use  sacred  things. 

Father  Calmet,  the  Benedictine  scholar  of  the  last 
century,  in  his  "Dictionary  of  the  Bible,"  gives  the 
following  summary  of  the  Mosaic  law  which  was  to 
guide  the  Jewish  priests:  "The  first  indication  of 
leprosy  is  an  outward  tumor,  the  second  is  a  pustule 
or  abcess,  the  third  is  a  whitish  or  red  and  shining 
spot,  to  which  the  epithets,  white,  brilliant,  are  often 
applied.  Whoever  presented  one  of  these  marks  was 
shut  up  for  seven  or  fourteen  days.  The  certain 
signs  of  leprosy  were,  first,  a  whitish,  reddish  shining 
spot;  second,  the  hair  pale  and  red  in  the  same  place; 
third,  the  part  more  deeply  sunk  than  the  rest  of  the 
skin.  A  simple  white  spot  was  not  sufficient  to 
cause  a  man  to  be  called  a  leper;  it  was  necessary 
that  this  should  grow  and  increase.  When  the 
whole  body  was  white  from  the  head  to  the  feet,  it 
was  pure  leprosy  \  and  when  the  flesh  was  covered 
with  white  tumors,  and  the  hair,  on  the  parts  where 
these  were  to  be  seen,  had  changed  color  and  become 
white,  it  was  inveterate  leprosy.^  and  rooted  in  the 
skin.  If  in  a  cicatrice,  or  in  a  place  which  had  been 
burned,  a  white  tumor  or  a  whitish  spot  'was  seen, 
shining  or  red,  more  depressed  than  the  surrounding 
parts,  it  was  a  mark  of  true  leprosy.''''  This  diagnosis 
is  similar  to  the  three  forms  of  leprosy  that  the  best 
informed  physicians  now  mention,  viz. :  ticberose^ 
macular  and  anaesthetic. 

Wallace,  in  his  "Ben  Hur,"  says:  "These  four 
are  accounted  as  dead — the  blind,  the  leper,  the  poor 
and  the  childless — thus  the  Talmud.     That  is,  to  be 


l6  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

a  leper  was  to  be  treated  as  dead — to  be  excluded 
from  the  city  as  a  corpse;  to  be  spoken  to  by  the  best 
beloved  and  most  loving  only  at  a  distance;  to  dwell 
with  none  but  lepers;  to  be  utterly  unprivileged;  to 
be  denied  the  rites  of  the  Temple;  to  go  about  in 
rent  garments  and  with  covered  mouth,  except  when 
cr}-ing  'unclean,  unclean!'  to  find  home  in  the  wilder- 
ness or  in  abandoned  tombs;  to  become  a  materialized 
specter  of  Hinnom  and  Gehenna;  to  be  at  all  times 
less  a  living  offense  to  others  than  breathing  torments 
to  self;  afraid  to  die,  yet  without  hope  except  in 
death." 

Again  he  says:  "Once  Tirzah's  mother  felt  a  dry 
scurf  in  the  palm  of  her  hand,  a  trifle  which  she  tried 
to  wash  away.  It  clung  to  the  member  pertina- 
ciously; yet  she  thought  but  little  of  the  sign  till 
Tirzah  complained  that  she,  too,  was  attacked  in  the 
same  way.  The  supply  of  water  was  scant,  and  they 
denied  themselves  drink  that  they  might  use  it  as  a 
curative.  hX  length  the  whole  hand  w^as  attacked; 
the  skin  cracked  open,  the  finger-nails  loosened  from 
the  flesh.  There  was  not  much  pain  withal,  chiefly 
a  steadily  increasing  discomfort.  Later  their  lips  be- 
gan to  parch  and  seam One  day  the 

mother  led  her  child  to  the  light  and  lo  \  the  young 
girl's  eyebrows  were  white  as  snow.  Oh,  the  anguish 
of  that  assurance!  The  mother  sat  awhile  speechless, 
motionless,  paralyzed  of  soul,  and  capable  of  but  one 
thought — lepros}',  leprosy!  .  .  .  Slowly,  stead- 
ily, with  horrible  certainty,  the  disease  spread,  after 
awhile  bleaching  their  heads  white,  eating  holes  in 
their  lips  and  eyelids, and  covering  their  bodies  with 


Leprosy  in  Ancient   Times.  17 

scales;  then  it  fell  to  their  throats,  shrilling  their 
voices,  and  to  their  joints,  hardening  the  tissues  and 
cartilages — slowly,  and,  as  the  mother  well  knew, 
past  remedy,  it  was  affecting  their  lungs,  arteries  and 
bones,  at  each  advance  making  the  sufferer  more  and 
more  loathsome;  and  so  it  would  continue  till  death, 
which  might  be  years  before  them." 

IN    CHINA. 

The  Rev.  J.  Edkins,  D.D. ,  the  most  distinguished 
sinologue  now  living  and  one  of  the  most  eminent 
authorities  on  the  history  of  China,  has  written 
instructively  of  leprosy.  In  Chinese  one  of  the  first 
references  to  leprosy,  he  says,  is  the  "  Wars  of  the 
Contending  States."  A  passage  in  that  history  says 
Yu  Jang  painted  his  body  with  varnish  to  represent 
a  leper,  and  removed  his  beard  and  eyebrows,  pun- 
ishing himself  in  this  way  to  change  his  appear- 
ance. 

This  he  did  to  disguise  himself  with  a  view  to  facil- 
itate his  assasination  of  an  enemy,  who  had  killed  his 
feudal  chief,  ruler  of  Tsin.  The  enemy  was  T'sau 
Siang  Tsi,  ruler  of  the  T'sau  feudal  State,  not  T'sau- 
chow-fu,  where  Shantung  borders  on  Honan. 

This  author  puts  the  origin  of  leprosy  in  China  in 
the  time  of  the  Chow  dynasty,  314-1121  B.C.  In  a 
Japanese  work  published  in  Tokio  in  17 81  and  trans- 
lated a  few  years  ago  by  Mr.  T'suchiya  of  New  York 
and  Dr.  A.  S.  Ashmead  of  the  same  city,  there  is  an 
allusion  to  a  pupil  of  Confucius,  who  was  supposed 
to  be  a  leper.  The  diagnosis  consisted  in  the  fact 
that  the  master  inserted  his  hand  throug-h  the  win- 


1 8  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

dow  casement  of  the  patient's  room,  saying  :     "This 
good  man  has  this  hatefnl  disease." 

IN    ROME. 

A  Latin  tradition  has  it  that  a  certain  high  official 
named  Volusian,  was  sent  by  Tiberias  to  seek  the 
Prophet,  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  bring  him  to  Rome, 
that  He  might  heal  the  Emperor,  who  had  been 
stricken  with  leprosy.  When  Volusian  reached  the 
city  of  Jerusalem,  Our  Lord  had  been  crucified.  The 
official  was  dumbfounded  at  the  news  that  Pilate  had 
dared  to  put  to  death  one  so  remarkable,  and  at  once 
set  about  to  learn  all  he  could  of  the  works  of  Christ. 
Among  others  he  met  Veronica,  it  having  been  related 
to  him  that  she  possessed  an  image  of  the  great 
Projphet.  When  it  was  shown  to  him  he  fell  upon 
his  knees  and  resolved  to  take  Veronica  with  him  to 
Rome  and  also  Pilate  as  a  prisoner,  Pilate  was  con- 
demned to  perpetual  exile  and  the  Emperor  was 
cured  by  looking  upon  the  divine  face  imprinted  on 
the  veil  of  Veronica.  Tiberias  lived  a  year  after 
being  cured  of  his  leprosy. 


CHAPTER  II. 

LEPROSY    IN    THE    MIDDLE   AGES. 

With  the  tide  of  emigration  westward  during  the 
decline  of  the  Roman  Empire,  leprosy  was  spread 
over  Europe,  and  during  the  Middle  Ages  prevailed 
to  such  an  awful  extent  that  from  the  6th  to  the  15th 
centuries  the  efforts  of  both  the  civil  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal law  never  ceased  to  stop  its  spreading.  The  sep- 
aration of  the  afflicted  was  still  a  universal  practice, 
but  under  the  influence  of  the  church  a  more  humane 
spirit  presided  over  the  treatment  of  the  lepers,  and 
hospitals  and  asylums  were  provided  for  them.  In 
the  13th  and  14th  centuries  the  awful  disease  had 
made  such  headway  that  leper  institutions  might  be 
said  to  cover  the  face  of  Europe,  and  at  one  time 
there  was  scarcely  a  town  of  any  size  in  France  but 
had  its  leper  asylum.  Michaud,  in  his  history  of  the 
Crusades,  says  that  the  testament  of  Louis  VIII.,  an 
historical  monument  of  that  period,  attests  the  exist- 
ence of  two  thousand  leproseries  (hospitals  for  lepers) 
in  the  kingdom  of  France  alone.  In  England  no 
leper-houses  existed  from  the  12th  to  the  i6th  cen- 
tury, one  of  the  best  known  of  which  was  that  of  St, 
James  at  Arundel,  the  seat  of  the  present  Duke  of 
Norfolk.  This  leper-asylum,  the  records  state,  was 
attended  by  an  Augustinian  friar,  who  received  for 
his  services  forty  shillings  per  annum.      Sir  James  Y. 


20  Leprosy,  ajid  the  Chanty  of  the  Church. 

Simpson,  Bart. ,  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  in 
his  essay  on  "  Leprosy  and  Leper  Hospitals  of  Eng- 
land and  Scotland,"  says  :  "By  Astruce,  Bach  and 
others,  it  has  been  averred  that  the  leprosy  of  the 
Middle  Ages  was  introduced  from  the  East  by  those 
who  returned  from  the  Crusades,  though  the  disease 
was  not  unknown  on  the  Continent  at  an  earlier 
period  and  there  were  two  lazar-houses  at  Canterbury 
during  the  reign  of  William  the  Conqueror,  seven 
years  previous  to  the  first  Crusade."  Henry  III.  was 
suspected  of  being  a  leper.  Some  writers  have 
asserted  that  Henry  I\".  was  afflicted  with  leprosy 
towards  the  end  of  his  life.  Robert  the  Bruce  died  of 
it  and  Baldwin  IV.,  King  of  Jerusalem,  died  a  leper 
at  the  age  of  twenty-three.  In  England,  according  to 
one  writer,  "  The  tenor  of  various  civil  codes  and 
enactments  made  a  leper  legally  and  politically  dead 
and  he  lost  all  privileges  of  citizenship."  In  the 
days  when  this  awful  scourge  reigned  supreme,  the 
ofrand  master  of  the  order  of  St.  Lazarus,  instituted 
for  the  care  and  relief  of  the  lepers,  w^as  obliged  to  be 
chosen  from  among  the  lepers.  Father  Helyot,  in  his 
"  History  of  ^Monastic  Orders,"  says  :  "  What  is  very 
remarkable  is,  that  the  Order  of  St.  Lazarus  could 
only  elect  as  grand-master  a  leprous  knight  of  the 
hospital  of  Jerusalem,  which  lasted  up  to  the  time  of 
Pope  Innocent  IV.,  that  is  to  say,  about  the  year 
1253,  when  having  been  obliged  to  abandon  Syria,  they 
addressed  the  Pontiflf  and  represented  to  him,  that 
always  having  had,  from  their  foundation,  a  leprous 
knight  for  grand-master,  they  found  themselves  in  the 
impossibility  of  electing  one,  because  the  infidels  had 


Leprosy  in  the  Middle  Ages. 


21 


killed  all  tlie  leprous  knights  of  their  hospital  at  Jeru- 
salem. For  this  reason,  they  prayed  the  Pontiff  to 
allow  them  to  elect,  for  the  future,  as  grand-master,  a 
knight  who  had  not  been  attacked  by  leprosy  and  who 


DEAD   OF   THE  PlwAGUK. 


might  be  in  good  health  ;  and  the  Pope  referred  them 
to  the  bishop  or  Trascate,  that  he  might  accord  them 
this  permission,  after  having  examined  if  that  could 
be  done  according  to  the  will  of  God.  This  is 
reported  by  Pope  Pius  IV. ,  in  his  bull  of  the  year 
1565,  so  extended  and  so  favorable  to  the  Order  of 


22  Leprosy,  a?id  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

St.  Lazarus,  by  which  he  renews  all  the  privileges 
and  all  the  gifts  that  his  predecessors  had  granted  to 
it  and  gives  it  fresh  ones." 

An  authentic  representation  of  the  leprosy  in  the 
Middle  Ages  exists  in  a  picture  at  Munich  by  Holbein, 
painted  at  Augsburg  in  1516  :  St.  Elizabeth  gives 
bread  and  wine  to  a  prostrate  group  of  lepers,  includ- 
ing a  bearded  man  whose  face  is  covered  with  large 
round  reddish  knobs,  an  old  woman  whose  arm  is 
covered  with  brown  blotches,  the  leg  swathed  in 
bandages  through  which  matter  oozes,  the  bare  knee 
also  marked  with  discolored  spots  and  on  the  head  a 
white  rag  or  plaster,  and  thirdlv,  a  young  man  whose 
neck  and  face  are  spotted  with  brown  patches  of  vari- 
ous sizes.  Virchow  thinks  that  the  painter  had  made 
a  study  of  lepers  from  the  leper  houses  then  existing 
at  Augsburg-. 


Leprosy  iji   Our  Day. 


25 


straiiit  whatever.  The  malady  also  exists  elsewhere 
in  France,  notably  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  cities 
of  Nice    and    Marseilles.     Not  a   single  country  in 


Europe  is  free  from  it.  It  is  found  in  Spain  and  Por- 
tugal, and  in  Italy  the  cases  are  so  many  that  a  laza- 
retto has  been  recently  established  at  San  Remo,  on 


26  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

the  Riviera.  It  is  very  common  in  Turkey  and  the 
Grecian  Islands.  In  Crete  there  are  about  500  cases. 
In  Sweden  the  disease  is  gaining  a  foothold,  463 
cases  being  reported  last  year.  In  Iceland  also  it  is 
increasing.  The  following  list,  though  no  doubt 
incomplete,  of  leper  hospitals  that  are  still  main- 
tained may  give  an  idea  of  its  extent  throughout  the 
world:  At  Cape  Town,  Mauritius;  at  Malacca  and 
Singapore,  at  Colombo,  at  Madras,  Cochin  and 
Bangalore,  at  Bombay  and  Rajkot,  and  at  Calcutta, 
Benares  and  Agra,  There  are  also  leper  hospitals  at 
Bergen,  Molde  and  Trondheim,  at  San  Remo,  at 
Oporto,  Coimbra  and  Lisbon,  at  Terceira  (xlzores), 
Las  Palmas  (Grand  Canary)  since  the  15th  century, 
and  at  Funchal  (Madeira)  since  1500;  at  Pernambuco, 
Bahia  and  Rio,  at  Macao  for  200  years,  at  Canton, 
Damascus  and  Jerusalem;  at  Molokai,  Sandwich 
Islands;  at  Cocorite,  Isle  of  Trinidad;  Tracadie,  New 
Brunswick;  at  Tananarive  and  Betsileo,  Madagascar; 
and  at  Indian  Camp,  White  Castle,  Louisiana. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LEPROSY   IN   THE   UXITED   STATES. 

We  find  cases  among  the  Chinese  in  California, 
among  the  Norwegians  in  ^Minnesota,  and  among  the 
negroes  in  Louisiana.  According  to  Dr.  Fox,  of 
New  York,  during  the  past  ten  or  fifteen  years  there 
have  been  constantly  from  one  to  half  a  dozen  or 
more  cases  in  the  hospitals  of  New  York  City,  while 
others  have  been  reported  from  Boston,  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore,  Chicago,  and  other  cities.  Most  of  these 
cases  have  occurred  among  sailors  or  others  who  have 
spent  considerable  time  in  tropical  countries  where 
leprosy  is  common,  and  there  contracted  the  disease. 
Occasionally  a  press  dispatch  like  this  appears: 

New  York,  Nov.  25. — A  leper  in  whom  the  dis- 
ease was  well  advanced  was  found  in  the  street  to-da}\ 
He  was  taken  to  the  offices  of  the  health  board  and 
examined  by  Dr.  C.  E.  Benedict,  of  the  Bureau  of 
Contagious  Diseases.  Dr.  Benedict  ordered  the  man 
sent  to  the  Reception  Hospital.  The  man  said  he 
was  Fito  Delbo,  and  that  he  came  here  several 
months  ago.  Lately  he  has  been  living  in  the  tene- 
ment 32  Cherry  street. 

Leprosy  exists  in  Key  West,  but  it  is  imported, 
and  not  indigenous,  although  the  conditions  of  the 
climate  favor  it.      The  same  mav  be  said  of  the   Chi- 


28  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

nese  lepers  in  California  and  those  among  the  Scan- 
dinavians in  Minnesota  and  other  northwestern  States. 
Nearly  all  the  cities  along  the  seacoast  have  had  leper 
patients  in  their  wards  at  one  time  or  another. 

Two  cases  in  Ohio  that  have  come  under  my  per- 
sonal observation  have  attracted  universal  attention, 
and  for  that  reason  I  beg  the  induloence  of  the  reader 
for  going  into  detail  concerning  them. 

TWO  OHIO  CASES. 

At  the  May,  1895,  meeting  of  the  Ohio  State  Medi- 
cal Society,  at  Columbus,  Dr.  J.  G.  McDougal,  of 
New  Lexington,  presented  two  cases  of  suspected 
leprosy  to  the  physicians.  The  "Journal  of  Materia 
Medica,"  published  at  Terre  Haute,  Indiana,  says: 
"The  .discovery  of  these  cases  has  caused  no  little 
excitement  and  apprehension,  and  has  filled  the  secu- 
lar press  from  one  end  of  the  country  to  the  other. 
We  have  been  so  accustomed  to  think  of  this  loath- 
some disease  as  a  thing  entirely  foreign  to  our  country 
and  as  belonging  to  the  ages  of  the  past,  that  it  is 
little  wonder  the  discovery  of  these  cases  has  created 
some  excitement.  If  the  feeling  of  concern  shall 
crystallize  into  some  definite  action  by  the  proper 
national  and  state  authorities,  looking  to  an  immedi- 
ate, enforced  segregation  of  all  lepers — both  native 
and  foreign  born — then  these  poor  children  will  not 
have  lived  and  suffered  in  vain.  We  are  indebted  to 
Dr.  McDougal  for  the  following  brief  and  accurate 
history  and  diagnosis  of  these  cases,  reported  by  him 
to  the  "Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Associa- 
tion," in  its  issue  of  February  3,  1895: 


Leprosy  in  the   United  States.  29 

ABSTRACT  OF  DR.   M'DOUGAL'S  REPORT. 

On  December  19,  1894,  there  appeared  before  the 
New  Lexington  Board  of  Pension  Examiners,  Han- 
nah M.  Garey,  an  applicant  for  a  pension  as  a  depend- 
ent child  of  George  W.  Garey,  a  deceased  soldier  of 
the  One  Hnndred  and  Eighty-Seventh  Regiment, 
Ohio  Infantry.  Examination  disclosed  that  she  was 
a  victim  of  ancesthetic  leprosy,  the  following  manifes- 
tations of  which  she  presented:  The  left  hand  and 
distal  third  of  forearm  were  sv/ollen  and  rather 
firmly  thickened,  the  hand  and  wrist  being  about 
twice  the  normal  size.  The  distal  phalanges  of  all 
the  fingers  were  lost  and  the  stumps  healed.  The 
thumb  was  slightly  flexed,  the  nail  deformed,  thick- 
ened, and  discolored. 

The  hand  was  being  amputated  at  the  radio-carpal 
articulation  by  a  narrow  encircling  ulcerative  process, 
and  the  work  was  so  near  completion  that  only  the 
ulnar. vessels  and  a  few  tendons  attached  the  hand. 
Both  surfaces  were  covered  by  granulations  and  bathed 
with  extremely  foul-smelling  pus.  The  right  hand 
and  fingers  were  swollen  and  clubbed,  the  distal 
phalanges  of  all  the  fingers  lost,  and  the  thumb 
affected  as  the  left. 

Both  feet  were  swollen  to  one  and  a  half  times  their 
normal  size  and  the  swelling  also  involved  the  lower 
third  of  the  legs.  The  first  three  toes  of  each  foot  were 
lost  at  the  middle  of  the  proximal  phalanges  and  the 
little  toes  at  the  distal  joints.  The  remaining  toes  were 
clawed  and  the  nails  deformed.  In  the  middle  of  the 
left  sole  was  a  deep  ulcer,  from  which  there  was  a  very 
offensive  discharge.     All  the  affected  members  were 


30 


Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Ch2<reh. 


decidedly  anaesthetic — the  thermal  anaesthesia  being 
especially  marked.     There  was  an  anaesthetic  bleb,  the 


size  of  a  silver  quarter,  on  the  outer  side  of  the  right 
arm  just  above  the  elbow.     The  tongue,  lips,  and  nose 


Leprosy  in  the   United  States.  31 

were  scarred  and  deformed  from  ulcerations  that  had 
healed.  The  subject  of  this  description  is  eighteen  years 
of  age  and  this  malady  began  to  manifest  itself  when 
she  was  fifteen  months  old.  In  two  or  three  years 
the  toes  began  to  ulcerate  and  come  off,  and  the  hands 
became  involved,  the  flesh  ulcerating  from  the  fingers, 
leaving  the  blackened  dry  bones  exposed,  and  these 
she  persistently  drummed  on  the  tables  and  chairs, 
until  her  mother  cut  them  ofi"  with  shears.  She 
menstruated  regularly  from  the  time  she  was  fourteen 
years  of  age  until  about  one  year  ago,  when  menses 
ceased.  The  drain  from  the  amputating  ulcer,  which 
developed  about  eighteen  months  ago,  probably 
caused  the  cessation  of  the  menstrual  flow. 

Learning  that  a  sister  eight  years  of  age  had  been 
similarly  afilicted  for  three  years,  I  visited  her,  find- 
ing the  following  evidences  of  the  same  disease: 
Her  feet  are  clubbed  and  legs  stocky,  and  the  skin 
covering  them  is  thick  and  scaly  and  decidedly  anaes- 
thetic. Two  toes  are  lost  from  each  foot.  The  hands 
are  also  thick  and  the  skin  covering  them  rough  and 
anesthetic;  the  nails  are  growing  deformed  and  dark. 

The  parents  and  grandparents  of  these  leprous 
sisters  were  all  natives  of  Ohio  and  belonged  to  long- 
lived  families.  The  parents  were  married  in  1866. 
There  are  eight  children  and  all  are  healthy  except 
Hannah  INI.,  the  fourth  born,  and  Hattie,  the  last 
born.  The  mother  is  forty-four  years  old  and  healthy. 
The  father  was  pensioned  for  sunstroke.  He  died 
from  apoplexy  March  10,  1893.  The  mother  states 
that  the  only  visible  disease  the  father  ever  had  was 
a  skin  eruption  on  the  end  of  his  nose  and  upper  lip, 


32  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

which  gave  off  an  oflfensive  discharge.  It  developed  a 
few  years  after  their  marriage  and  never  healed.  It 
must  have  been  slight,  as  several  acquaintances  of 
whom  I  inquired  had  never  seen  the  affection.  He 
had  consulted  physicians  about  it,  however,  who  had 
called  it  eczema  and  had  treated  him  for  it. 

The  One  Hundred  and  Eighty-Seventh  Regiment, 
Ohio  Infantry,  of  which  the  father  was  a  member, 
was  stationed  during  the  few  months  it  was  in  service 
at  Nashville,  Tennessee;  Dalton,  Kingston,  and 
Macon,  Georgia. 

I  am  willing  to  submit,  without  argument,  that  the 
father  was  a  leper,  in  whom  the  bacillus  leprae  did 
not  vigorously  thri\'e;  that  leprosy  was  communicated 
to  him  while  in  the  South  during  the  war,  and  that 
he  communicated  the  disease  to  two  of  his  children." 

Dr.  iMcDougal  read  before  the  meeting  at  Columbus 
a  succinct  report  of  the  cases.  In  it  he  states  that 
the  hand  of  the  oldest  girl,  as  shown  in  the  illustra- 
tion, was  removed  and  sent  away  for  bacteriologic 
examination.  The  surgeon  at  Washington  made  a 
report,  the  latter  part  of  which  I  quote: 

"All  the  sections  were  stained  for  lepra  bacilli, 
with  negative  result.  Those  sections  containing 
giant  cells  were  also  stained  for  tubercle  bacilli. 
None  were  found.  The  disease,  therefore,  in  my 
opinion,  is  neither  leprosy  nor  tuberculosis,  which, 
by  exclusion,  throws  some  weight  upon  the  suspicion 
of  syphilis.  (Signed)         :\I.  J.  RosEXAU, 

P.  A.  Surgeon,  ]\Iarine  Hospital  Service." 

To  this  report  Dr.  ^IcDougal  makes  the  following 
answer:     "  Because  no  lepra  or  tubercle  bacilli  were 


Leprosy  in  the   United  States.  33 

found  he  concludes  the  disease  is  neither  leprosy  nor 
tuberculosis,  and  therefore  must  be  syphilis.  Rela- 
tive to  this  I  quote  Morrow  ('New  York  Medical 
Journal, '  July  27,  1889,)  who  says:  '  The  bacillus  is 
not  found  in  the  chronic  sores  or  necrosed  tissues  and 
bones  of  the  anaesthetic  leper.  Numerous  and  re- 
peated examinations  of  sections  of  an  amputated 
finger  showed  no  bacilli.'  The  same  author,  in  his 
text  book  published  last  year — 1894 — states  with  his 
first  sentence  on  the  diagnosis  of  the  anaesthetic  form 
of  leprosy:  'While  the  identification  of  the  lepra 
bacillus  in  the  tissues  is  rarely  practicable  in  nerve 
leprosy,  yet  the  invariable  presence  of  anaethesia  in 
established  cases  constitute  a  diagnostic  element  of 
almost  pathognomonic  value.'  And  similar  state- 
ments are  made  by  other  authors.  Did  not,  therefore, 
our  esteemed  bacteriologist  go  beyond  the  pale  of 
scientific  knowledge  in  expressing  this  opinion?  And 
into  the  realms  of  speculation  when  he  concluded  it 
was,  therefore,  syphilis?"  Dr.  McDougal  further 
adds:  "  Moses  of  old  would  have  dealt  with  them  as 
lepers  on  the  discovery  of  far  fewer  and  less  charac- 
teristic symptoms  than  these,  and  without  his  camp 
would  their  habitation  have  been." 

Dr.  McDougal  concluded  his  paper  with  these 
words:  "  For  there  is  no  doubt  but  that  leprosy  is 
on  the  increase,  not  only  in  other  countries  but  also 
in  our  own.  If  what  I  have  shown  you  is  leprosy, 
let  us  do  what  we  can  to  set  aside  all  ignorant  fear 
of  the  malady.  In  the  face  of  a  disease  which  has 
for  ages  been  accounted  one  of  the  most  dreadful  of 
plagues,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  public  should  be 


34  Leprosy^  ajid  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

struck  with  panic.  On  the  other  hand,  let  lis  profit 
by  the  experience  of  the  past  and  urge  the  adoption 
of  measures  that  will  prevent  its  spread."  The 
writer,  in  company  with  Dr.  McDougal,  Drs.  Moody 
and  Gordon,  of  Junction  City,  Ohio,  and  Dr.  Jno.  E. 
Russell,  of  Mt.  Vernon,  Ohio,  visited  these  cases  on 
the  2ist  day  of  July  this  year.  What  appreciable 
change  has  taken  place  in  the  appearance  of  the 
victims  during  the  past  year  leads  only  the  more 
strongly  to  the  conclusion  that  these  girls  are  lepers. 
However,  to  use  the  words  of  Dr.  McDougal:  "  They 
are  not  yet  indisputably  proven  to  be  lepers." 

Dr.  A.  W.  Hitt,  of  Louisville,  Ky.,  one  of  the 
editors  of  the  "Journal  of  Materia  Medica,"  and  one 
of  the  most  prominent  leprologists  of  this  country, 
was  present  at  the  Ohio  State  ]\Iedical  Meeting  at 
Columbus,  and  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  these  cases 
were  genuine  leprosy — the  anaesthetic  form.  He  is 
also  authority  for  the  statement  that  there  are  522 
genuine  cases  of  leprosy  in  the  United  States.  He 
has  visited  India,  where  there  are  189,000  lepers, 
China,  Egypt  and  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  is  com- 
petent to  judge,  as  he  has  made  a  specialty  of  leprosy. 


CHAPTER  V. 

I.EPROSY    IN    LOUISIANA. 

Leprosy  is  supposed  to  have  been  introduced  in 
Louisiana  by  the  French  Acadians  in  tlie  latter  part 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  ever  since  efforts  more 
or  less  successful  have  been  made  to  check  its 
progress.  In  1894,  the  legislature  passed  an  act  cre- 
ating a  Board  of  Control,  whose  duty  it  is  to  provide 
a  home  for  lepers  and  their  care.  When  a  desirable 
location  was  nearly  secured,  the  New  Orleans  City 
Council  refused  to  permit  the  erection  of  the  home,  al- 
though as  the  Board  says  in  its  First  Annual  Report: 
"For  years  the  unfortunate  victims  of  leprosy  had 
been  allowed  to  travel  on  the  street  cars,  eat  at  pub- 
lic restaurants,  beg  on  the  thoroughfares  and  other- 
wise expose  an  unguarded  public."  A  location  was 
finally  obtained  by  lease  for  five  years  in  Iberville 
Parish — at  the  old  "Indian  Camp"  plantation  near  by 
White  Castle,  a  desirable  locality  in  every  respect  for 
such  a  home  except  from  the  point  of  accessibility.  I 
quote  from  the  Board  of  Control  Report  the  particu- 
lars of  its  inception:  "On  the  last  day  of  November, 
the  first  contingent  of  lepers  was  transported  from 
New  Orleans,  by  night,  to  the  home.  This  was  ac- 
complished with  the  greatest  difficulty,  on  a  coal 
barge,  towed  by  a  tug.     For  a  time  the  existence  of 

the  home  was  threatened  by  the  inhabitants  of  Iber- 

35 


36  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

ville  Parish.  A  rational  judgment,  however,  sup- 
planted an  early  and  misguided  prejudice  and  the 
poor  sufferers  were  only  pitied  the  more  because  they 
wished  for  themselves  the  isolation  which  the  law 
compelled.  Every  effort  was  made  to  obtain  reliable 
information  concerning  the  number  of  lepers  at  large 
in  the  state.  Communications  were  addressed  to  the 
coroners  in  every  parish  (county).  This  was  barren 
of  results  and  even  of  acknowledgment  save  in  two  or 
three  instances.  By  personal  persuasion,  through  in- 
dividual voluntary  inclination  and,  in  some  instances, 
by  legal  action,  the  number  of  lepers  has  been  in- 
creased to  thirty-one."  Of  these,  twenty-two  were 
born  in  Louisiana,  five  of  these  in  the  city  of  New 
Orleans.  Two  were  born  in  France  and  two  in  Ger- 
many. Most  of  them  are  afflicted  with  "mixed  lep- 
rosy," and  they  range  in  age  from  sixty-five  to 
thirteen.  Four  of  the  patients  are  daughters  of  the 
same  mother,  and  another  is  a  cousin  to  these. 
Among  the  suggestions  made  by  the  board  are  these  : 
"It  is  our  opinion  that  influence  should  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  neighboring  states,  with  a  view  to  the 
creation  of  legislation  directed  at  leprosy,  to  protect 
themselves  and  prevent  lepers  from  Louisiana  emi- 
grating, in  their  desire  to  escape  the  law.  Police  au- 
thority should  be  given  the  Leper  Board  as  a  body 
and  as  individuals,  so  that  lepers  can  be  apprehended, 
investigated  and  committed  without  the  delay  now 
entailed."  The  report  closes  with  these  words:  "If 
this  last  attempt  at  controlling  leprosy  is  to  be  a  suc- 
cess, it  must  be  a  radical  one,  it  must  be  an  actual 
one,  and  unhindered  by  politics  or  other  obstacles  to 


Lepi'osy  in  Louisiana.  37  " 

its  broad  purpose.  Heretofore  failure  has  only  fol- 
lowed all  attempts  through  the  lack  of  interest  of 
those  in  authority  or  through  an  inadequate  idea  of 
the  importance  of  the  office."  Since  these  words 
were  written,  Drs.  Dyer  and  Scherck  of  the  board 
have  resigned  in  consequence  of  financial  difficulties. 
The  State  Legislature  has  not  shown  a  disposition 
to  uphold  the  effiDrts  of  the  Board.  The  members  of 
Iberville  protested  against  the  establishment  of  the 
home  in  their  locality  on  the  ground  that  its  presence 
would  depreciate  the  value  of  every  kind  of  property 
in  the  neighborhood.  On  this  plea  purchase  money 
was  refused  by  the  state,  and  when  the  present  lease 
expires,  it  is  likely  no  other  locality  will  tolerate  a 
leper  settlement  unless  it  be  one  of  the  uninhab- 
ited islands  off  the  gulf  coast.  The  settlement  so 
far  has  been  a  success,  sheltering  many  lepers  who 
hitherto  had  hidden  in  the  swamps  or  were  concealed 
by  their  relatives  in  out  of  the  way  places.  It  is  very 
unfortunate  that  the  home  loses  the  services  of  such 
capable  physicians  as  Drs.  Dyer  and  Scherck,  but  it 
is  said  it  will  not  stop  experimentations  for  a  possible 
cure  of  leprosy.  Col.  G.  M.  Bowie  of  White  Castle 
is  said  to  be  resolved  upon  having  every  cure  reported 
from  any  part  of  the  world  tried  iw.  the  home. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE   MENACE  OF   LEPROSY. 


A  communication  which  appeared  last  summer  in 
the  columns  of  the  Cincinnati  Commercial-Gazette, 
under  the  title  of  "The  Menace  of  Leprosy,"  is  so 
replete  with  information  that  I  give  it  a  place  in  these 
pages.  By  some  it  may  be  thought  extravagant,  yet 
it  has  food  for  reflection  to  those  interested  in  the  sub- 
ject.    The  writer  says: 

"A  terrible  and  constantly  increasing  danger  men- 
aces the  lives  of  tens  of  thousands,  if  not  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  people  in  the  United  States.  A  hor- 
rible, lingering,  living  death,  far  more  to  be  feared 
than  either  3-ellow  fever  or  cholera,  under  which  the 
individual  either  quickly  succumbs,  or  is  cured  with- 
in a  few  days,  is  now  face  to  face  with  the  Americans 
in  the  incurable  and  loathsome  disease  of  leprosy. 
Unless  stern  and  determined  measures  are  taken 
by  the  National  and  State  Boards  of  Health,  vigor- 
ously to  exclude  leper  subjects  from  entering  our 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  ports,  as  well  as  from  the  Mex- 
ican and  Canadian  borders,  we  may  within  a  few 
years  be  placed  in  the  position  of  India,  which  to-day 
has  a  leper  population  of  close  upon  132,000,  all  of 
which  has  been  developed  within  the  memory  of  living 
men.     And  if  a  close  scrutiny  is  not  kept  by  our 

Consuls  in  foreign  countries  on  the  invoices  of  goods 

38 


The  Meiiace  of  Leprosy.  39 

sent  from  places  Avliere  lepers  abound,  the  contagion 
may  be  spread  here  to  the  same  extent  it  vras  in  Europe 
in  the  t\Yelfth  century,  %\dien  there  were  no  less  than 
twenty  thousand  lazar  houses  on  that  continent,  and 
two  thousand  in  France  alone. 

The  disease  is  now  right  here  amono;  us.  The 
Eastern  and  Southern  States  have  had  the  g-erms 
brought  to  them  direct  from  three  sources — the  West 
Indies,  Canada  and  Southern  Europe;  the  Western 
States  from  China,  Northern  Europe,  and  Oceanica. 
The  leprous  taint  is  gradually  spreading  in  Louisiana, 
Florida,  Minnesota,  Iowa,  Wisconsin  and  California, 
and  it  is  also  to  be  found  in  a  lesser  degree  in  Texas, 
Oregon,  Utah,  South  Carolina  and  the  Empire  State 
of  Xew  York.  Prof  Prince  A.  IMorrow,  I\I.D., 
Health  Commissioner  Dr.  Cyrus  Edson  and  Chief  In- 
spector of  Contagious  Diseases  Dr.  Alvah  H.  Doty^ 
have  not  hesitated  on  occasions  to  warn  the  people  of 
the  United  States  of  the  horrible  peril  now  hanging 
over  the  country.  Our  most  prominent  derm^atologists, 
who  are  intimately  acquainted  with  the  facts,  not  only 
through  their  theoretic  scientific  knowledge,  but  their 
practical  experience  with  the  disease,  are  all  united  as 
to  the  necessity  of  immediate  quarantine  restrictions 
being  carried  out.  One  of  these.  Dr.  Leonard  F. 
Pitkin,  physician-in-chief  of  the  Institute  of  Der- 
matology, and  who  was  associated  years  ago  with  the 
late  Profs.  J.  ]\[arion  Sims  and  John  T.  Darby,  in- 
formed me  a  short  time  ago  that  while  he  was  attend- 
ing physician  of  the  New  York  Dispensary'  and  a 
member  of  the  hospital  staff  at  Ward's  and  Black- 
well's  Islands,  case  after  case  of  leprosy  was  brought 


40  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Oucrch. 

to  the  notice  of  himself  and  associates,  proving  con- 
clusively to  them  that  the  lazaretto  established  on 
North  Brother  Island,  in  Long  Island  Sound,  had 
been  brought  into  existence  not  a  moment  too  soon. 

Through  the  carelessness  of  the  health  authorities 
there  has  been  allowed  to  come  into  existence  at  Key 
West,  in  Florida,  and  New  Orleans,  in  Louisiana,  two 
distinct  and  large  colonies  of  lepers,  nearly  all  of 
whom  found  their  way  to  this  country  from  Cuba  and 
the  British  West  Indian  Islands  of  Barbadoes,  St. 
Kitt's,  St.  Lucia  and  Jamaica,  and  these,  like  all  the 
rest  of  the  British  colonies  all  over  the  world,  are 
positively  reeking  with  leprosy.  Emigrants  from 
there  have  not  only  found  their  way  through  the 
southern  ports  named,  but  have  also  been  permitted  to 
enter  this  country  via  the  port  of  New  York,  which 
is  claimed  to  have  the  most  perfect  system  of  quar- 
antine in  the  world.  Health  Commissioner  Emery, 
of  Brooklyn,  unearthed  recently  several  cases  of  col- 
ored lepers  who  had  come  directly  from  Barbadoes, 
and  they  had  been  permitted  for  the  last  few  years  to 
commingle  freely  with  the  people  in  the  City  of 
Churches,  until  placed  under  municipal  surveillance. 
Dr.  Thomas  Wildes,  who  was  the  American  Consul 
for  some  years  at  Kingston,  Jamaica,  insists  that  it 
has  been  proved  to  his  satisfaction  that  this  fright- 
fully infectious  disease,  which  he  carefully  studied 
while  in  the  West  Indies,  is  rapidly  spreading  in  New 
York  and  other  eastern  and  Southern  cities,  and  that 
cases  which  have  lately  come  under  his  notice  have 
been  imported  without  any  peradventure  from  the 
British  insular  possessions  in  the  Caribbean  sea. 


The  Menace  of  Leprosy.  41 

Dr.  Doty,  Health  Officer  of  the  Port  of  New  York, 
thoroughly  appreciates  the  danger,  and  his  mission  to 
Havana,  in  consultation  with  the  United  States  Med- 
ical Inspector  Burgess,  is  not  simply  as  announced,  to 
study  the  present  great  mortality  from  yellow  fever  in 
Cuba,  but  also  to  become  more  acquainted  there  and 
at  New  Orleans,  which  he  will  inspect  on  his  return, 
with  the  ravages  resulting  from  leprosy.  It  is  a  strange 
circumstance  that  the  disease,  which  was  rife  in 
Louisiana  over  a  century  ago,  and  where  there  was  a 
very  famous  lazaretto,  died  out  only  to  be  resuscitated 
eighty  years  afterward  by  emigration  from  the  West 
Indies,  This,  according  to  Dr.  Pitkin,  brings  us  to  a 
very  important  question,  that  in  the  event  of  the  an- 
nexation of  either  Cuba  or  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  where 
leprosy  is  most  rife,  one  of  the  consequences  will  be 
naturally  free  communication,  without  those  custom 
regulations  now  existing.  It  is  also  not  impossible  that 
New  Foundland,  New  Brunswick  and  Nova  Scotia, 
all  of  which  are  dissatisfied  with  British  rule,  may 
likewise  come  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Stars  and 
Stripes.  If  so,  the  same  trouble  will  have  to  be  con- 
sidered, particularly  from  New  Brunswick.  Ac- 
cording to  A.  C.  Smith,  1\I. I.,  Inspector  of  Leprosy 
and  Medical  Advisor  to  the  Lazaretto  at  Tracadie, 
New  Brunswick,  in  his  last  report  to  the  Minister  of 
Agriculture  at  Ottawa,  there  are  leper  populations  in 
New  Brunswick,  as  well  as  in  the  adjoining  British 
dependencies.  Some  of  these  lepers,  he  states,  re- 
main at  large,  notwithstanding  he  has  taken  "meas- 
ures to  prevent  them  from  engaging  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  codfish." 


4^  Leprosy,  and  the  CharHy  cf  the  Clnireh. 

Dr.  Pitkin  insists  that  not  a  railway  train  should  be 
admitted  from  Canada,  or  a  ship  from  that  country  to 
any  part  of  our  territory,  either  on  the  Canadian 
border  or  to  our  ports  on  the  great  lakes,  without  a 
rigid  search  being  made  for  possible  cases  of  leprosy. 

The  disease  is  also  spreading  in  our  Northwestern 
States,  through  immigration  from  the  Scandinavian 
countries  of  Europe.  Norway  is  the  most  important 
European  center  of  leprosy,  where,  in  1884,  the  leper 
population  amounted  to  nearly  two  thousand  two 
hundred.  Minnesota,  Iowa,  and  Wisconsin  have, 
without  any  question  whatever,  leper  colonies  of 
Scandinavian  birth  and  descent.  This  fact  was  sub- 
stantiated by  Dr.  Brockmann,  who  estimated  that 
"  there  must  be  in  Minnesota  alone  100,000  persons — 
of  Norwegian  descent — of  leprous  ancestors."  Dr. 
Hansen,  who  discovered  the  bacillus  of  leprosy  in 
1874,  and  who  made  a  tour  of  investigation  in  the 
sections  of  the  United  States  just  named,  corroborates 
Dr.  Brockmann' s  position.  Immigrants  from  South- 
ern Russia  have,  it  is  claimed,  also  been  the  means  of 
spreading  the  contagion  in  some  of  our  Western 
States,  as  well  as  in  the  cities  on  our  Atlantic  sea- 
board. This  is  an  important  fact,  and  should  not  be 
overlooked,  in  view  of  Sir  Morell  MacKenzie's  state- 
ment that  "  leprosy  is  spreading  to  an  alarming  degree 
in  Russia,  and  in  almost  every  other  quarter  of  the 
globe  it  is  extending  its  ravages." 

But  of  all  foreio-n  countries  from  which  the  dreaded 

o 

disease  has  been  brought  to  our  shores,  the  worst  is 
China.  The  immigrants  from  there  have  penetrated 
every  city  in  the  land,  carrying  along  with  them  the 


The  Menace  of  Leprosy.  43 

leprous  germs,  which  through  laundries  and  cigar 
factories,  where  they  have  been  employed,  have  dis- 
tributed the  seeds  of  the  disease  by  wholesale.  Statis- 
tics gathered  by  the  State  of  California  have  shown 
that  the  disease  has  been  established  on  a  firm  footing 
there,  and  that  it  is  distinctly  attributable  to  Mongo- 
lian lepers,  some  of  whom,  discovered  in  New  York, 
were  quarantined  on  North  Brother  Island,  where  they 
still  remain. 

The  development  of  the  disease  in  Hawaii  can  be 
traced  from  its  genesis  in  1850.  To-day  one  thousand 
two  hundred  of  the  worst  cases  have  been  herded 
together  in  the  leper  settlement  of  Molokai,  which 
has  proved  conclusively  the  contagiousness  of  the  dis- 
ease. The  most  notable  case  on  record  in  this  con- 
nection is  that  of  the  humanitarian,  Father  Damien 
de  Veuster,  who,  in  1873,  left  his  cure  in  Hawaii  to 
give  up  his  life  for  the  unfortunates  kept  apart  from 
the  rest  of  the  world  at  Molokai.  When  he  first  took 
upon  himself  this  act  of  self-sacrifice,  and  to  which  he 
died  a  martyr,  he  was  a  robust,  healthy  man.  Three 
years  later  he  developed  incipient  tubercular  leprosy, 
the  most  horrible  and  virulent  phase  of  the  disease. 
Within  ten  years  he  was  a  corpse. 

We  are,  however,  in  as  great  danger  from  foods  and 
merchandise  exported  to  this  country  from  localities 
where  leprous  bacilli  have  practically  taken  possession 
of  communities  favorable  to  its  spread,  through  the 
lack  of  proper  hygienic  conditions,  and  sustenances 
more  suited  to  barbaric  than  civilized  peoples.  Sugar, 
bananas,  and  the  like,  that  have  been  handled  by 
leprous  West  Indian  negroes,  we  can  not  protect  our- 


44  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

selves  against,  unless  our  Consular  representatives 
keep  a  strict  watch  on  the  localities  from  which  they 
are  sent  and  warn  the  Federal  Government  of  the 
danger  in  time.  Tea  and  ginger  from  China,  codfish 
from  New  Brunswick,  and  rags  from  the  countries 
bordering  on  the  Eastern  part  of  the  Mediterranean, 
have  been  particularly  regarded  by  Dr.  Pitkin  and 
other  dermatologists  as  of  the  most  dangerous  of  all 
the  ways  in  which  leprosy  may  be  communicated 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of  this  country. 

The  fallacy  dogmatically  promulgated,  in  1867,  by 
the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  that  leprosy  was  not  con- 
tagious, has  been  shown  to  be  absolutely  false  by  Dr. 
Hansen's  discovery  of  the  lepric  bacilli  in  1874.  This 
is  a  slender,  rod-like  parasite,  half  to  three-quarters  of 
the  diameter  of  a  human  blood  corpuscle  and  one-fifth 
of  its  length.  The  British  dogma  of  the  non-con- 
tagiousness of  leprosy  is  no  longer  heeded  by  Ameri- 
can and  other  dermatologists.  But  many  of  the 
physicians  and  authorities  in  the  British  possessions 
still  hold  to  the  position  taken  twenty-eight  years  ago 
by  the  highest  British  medical  authority,  and  the  con- 
sequence is  that  our  best  authorities  have  to  regard 
immigrants  and  products  from  all  the  colonial  posses- 
sions of  Great  Britain  with  the  most  terrible  dread. 

Medical  science  seems  to  be  united  now  in  the 
belief  that  leprosy  is  not  hereditarily  transmissible, 
and  Dr.  Pitkin,  as  an  evidence  of  this,  called  my 
attention  to  the  fact  that  it  was  so  recognized  in  the 
notable  instance  of  the  foundation  of  the  Kapiolani 
Home  at  Honolulu  for  the  non-leprous  children  of 


The  Menace  of  Leprosy. 


45 


lepers.  It  has  also  been  discovered  that  women  are 
less  liable  to  the  disease  than  men;  thus,  for  instance, 
there  are  ninety-nine  thousand  male  lepers  in  the  East 
Indies  to  thirty-three  thousand  females.  Although 
incurable  in  individual  cases  brought  on  by  want  of 
cleanliness,  exposure  to  cold  and  damp,  and  the  use 
of  semi-putrid  fish  and  meat  and  rancid  oil,  yet 
hygienic  and  proper  sanitary  conditions  appear  to  have 
destroyed  it  in  certain  communities. 


TUBERCrXAR  LEPROSY. 


AN'.i;3THEXIC  LEPROSY. 


But  it  is  erratic  in  its  methods,  as  shown  in  the  fact 
that  the  incubation  of  the  disease  may  go  on  unrecog- 
nized from  three  to  twenty  years  or  more.  Cases  are 
cited  of  persons  having  resided  in  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  British  Guiana,  the  United  States  of  Colombia, 
New  Caledonia,  and  elsewhere,  who,  although  they 
unknowingly  contracted  the  disease  there,  did  not 
show  traces  of  it  for  long  years  afterward. 


46  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

Tubercular  leprosy,  Dr.  Pitkin  explained  to  me, 
begins  in  a  different  manner  from  that  milder  type  of 
the  disease,  anaesthetic  or  painless  leprosy.  It  com- 
mences by  exhibiting  small  spots  where  the  lepric, 
parasitic  bacilli  have  made  lesions  or  entrances  into 
the  flesh.  Then  tubercules  develop,  unite  with  others 
and  give  to  the  features  a  corrugated  or  furrowed 
appearance,  or  sometimes  that  of  nodular  promi- 
nences, egg-shaped  in  character.  The  clieeks  become 
tumefied,  the  lips  swollen,  the  nose  thickened,  broad- 
ened, and  crushed  in  appearance,  and  the  ears  pro- 
tuberant with  thin  lobes  flabbily  hanging  down.  The 
eye-brows  and  eye-lashes  disappear,  and  other  frightful 
changes  take  place,  until  in  this,  the  first  stage  of 
tubercular  leprosy,  the  physiognomy  is  altered  into 
one  hideous  mass  of  disfiguration,  and  is  no  longer  the 
human  face  divine. 

The  early  development  of  anaesthetic  leprosy  is 
marked  by  the  absence  of  febrile  symptoms,  but  is 
accompanied  by  disorders  of  sensation  and  nutrition. 
Its  principal  symptoms  are  bluish  red  or  reddish 
brown  spots,  deepening  into  brownish  yellow,  or  sepia 
in  tinge,  according  to  complexion  or  race.  Painlefs- 
ness,  or  lack  of  sense,  that  is  to  say,  anaesthesia, 
follows  through  the  nerve  fibers  being  destroyed  in 
the  parts  of  the  body  spotted.  A  person  may  have 
these  symptoms  in  the  system  for  fifteen  or  twenty 
years  without  having  the  faintest  idea  of  the  gravity 
of  the  situation.  Later,  paralysis  of  the  nerves  affects 
the  facial  muscles.  Control  of  the  eyelids  is  lost,  and 
the  eyeballs  not  being  protected,  inflammation  and 
ulceration,  through  the  exposure  of  the  visual  organs, 


The  Menace  of  Leprosy.  47 

bring  on  total  loss  of  sight.  A  distinguished  feature 
of  this  form  of  leprosy  is  the  leper  hand,  atrophy  of 
the  muscles,  making  it  claw-shaped.  Another  is  the 
paralytic  club  foot.  In  both  of  these  characteristic 
symptoms  the  fingers  and  toes  gradually  drop  off,  gan- 
grene eating  them  away.  As  in  tubercular  leprosy, 
death,  which  is  painless,  though  longer  delayed,  finally 
results  from  physical  exhaustion  of  the  patient,  bring- 
ing on  dysentery,  etc. 

What  shall  be  done,  in  view  of  the  facts  recited,  to 
arrest  the  further  spread  of  the  disease  in  America  ? 
Dr.  Pitkin  insists  that  first,  the  state  sanitary  code 
ought  to  be  amended  to  specifically  include  leprosy  as 
an  infectious,  contagious,  or  pestilential  disease, 
equally  with  cholera,  yellow  fever,  small-pox,  diph- 
theria, ship  or  typhus,  typhoid,  spotted,  relapsing,  or 
scarlet  fever,  which  are,  for  instance,  in  New  York, 
the  only  ones  particularly  named  in  its  sanitary  code 
as  to  be  reported  to  the  Board  of  health.  Next,  the 
National  Board  of  Health  should  force  on  federal 
legislation  looking  toward  the  complete  isolation  and 
segregation  of  lepers  who  may  hereafter  immigrate  to 
this  country.  The  same  national  body  should  also 
take  steps  to  bring  about  an  international  conference 
for  the  better  protection  of  all  countries  against  the 
curse  of  leprosy.  But  especially,  and  above  all,  the 
National  Board  of  Health  should  see  to  it  that  the 
State  Department  shall  instruct  every  United  States 
Consul  to  watch  carefully  the  onward  march  of 
leprosy  in  those  foreign  countries  to  which  they  are 
assigned,  and  to  be  imperatively  instructed  to  refuse 
their  consular  certificates  and  signatures  for  any  goods 


48  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

proposed  to  be  imported  to  this  country  against  which 
there  is  the  slightest  suspicion  of  their  having  been 
handled  by  lepers,  during  the  processes  of  production 
and  manufacture,  not  forgetting  to  put  an  absolute 
boycott  or  quarantine  on  those  ships  the  cargoes  of 
which  are  handled  by  leper  stevedores,  a  not  unusual 
circumstance  in  the  British  West  Indies. 

If,  however,  these  precautions  are  not  immediately 
carried  into  effect,  Dr.  Pitkin  does  not  hesitate  to 
assert  that  we  may  have  within  the  next  ten  years  at 
least  250,000  to  500,000  lepers  included  among  the 
inhabitants  of  the  United  States." 

The  possibility  of  leprosy  spreading  to  such  an 
alarming  extent  as  mentioned  in  the  above  letter  is 
denied  by  most  authorities. 

]\Iajor  Joseph  Button,  who  was  the  companion  of 
Father  Damien,  the  leper-priest  mentioned  in  the 
above  article,  in  a  letter  to  the  writer  from  Molokai, 
Hawaiian  Islands,  under  date  of  July  12th  of  last 
year,  says  of  the  spread  of  the  disease  in  the  United 
States:  "Your  letter  of  May  24th  received  some  time 
since,  also  the  two  clippings  concerning  the  two  New 
Lexington,  Ohio,  cases  of  leprosy.  Cases  of  leprosy 
are  appearing  in  various  sections  of  the  United  States, 
several  hundred  cases  in  all,  including  the  old  time 
leper-colony  in  Louisiana;  but  I  feel  certain  that 
special  conditions  surround  every  one  of  these  cases 
and  that  the  disease  will  not  spread  in  the  United 
States."  This  is  the  testimony  of  one  who  has  lived 
and  labored  among  lepers,  dressed  their  sores  and 
studied  leprosy  for  the  past  nine  years. 

In  another  letter  under  date  of  Aug.  15,  1896,  he 


The  Menace  of  Leprosy.  49 

says:  "The  (lay)  opinion  I  expressed  to  you  last  year 
relative  to  the  probable  danger  from  spread  of  leprosy 
in  the  United  States  was  in  accordance  with  my  judg- 
ment then,  and  I  yet  have  belief  in  its  correctness. 
But  still  I  must  admit  that  later  developments  and 
the  contrary  views  of  many  wiser  heads,  have  caused 
me  to  think  more  deeply  upon  it.  One  thing  we  can 
note — that  the  majority  of  these  cases  are  old  ones. 
It  is  the  recent  shaking  up  the  subject  has  received 
that  has  brought  it  before  the  public  and  made  it  look 
important."  Opinions  vary  among  the  best  informed 
as  to  its  possible  spread,  at  least  in  our  Northern 
States. 

Dr.  Fox,  of  New  York,  says:  "In  the  city  of  New 
York  we  constantly  have  a  few  imported  cases  of 
leprosy.  Some  of  these  go  unobserved,  while  others 
are  treated  both  in  and  out  of  our  hospitals.  The 
popular  dread  of  the  disease,  which  is  as  intense  as  it 
is  unreasonable,  is  naturally  heightened  by  the  sensa- 
tional accounts  of  lepers  which  are  often  to  be  found 
in  the  daily  papers;  and  since  this  arises  largely  from 
an  ignorance  of  the  true  nature  of  the  disease,  it 
seems  to  me  to  be  the  duty  of  the  profession  to  allay 
as  far  as  possible  this  uneasiness  on  the  part  of  the 
public.  But  there  are  some  physicians  who  claim 
that  the  danger  is  not  a  slight  one,  and  that  if  lepers 
are  allowed  to  go  at  large  in  this  country  we  will  soon 
find  leprosy  increasing  here  as  it  has  increased  else- 
where. I  cannot  believe  that  there  is  any  ground  for 
such  a  fear.  Among  the  natives  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  who  live  in  large  numbers  under  the  same 
roof  and  often  in  the  same  room,  who  have  not  the 


50  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

remotest  idea  of  personal  cleanliness,  and  who  obtain 
their  food  by  dipping  their  ulcerated  fingers  into  a 
common  dish,  it  is  not  surprising  that  leprosy  abounds. 
But  the  white  population  is  remarkably  free  from  the 
disease,  and  I  have  yet  to  learn  of  any  instance  where 
leprosy  has  ever  obtained  a  foothold  in  and  spread 
through  an  intelligent  and  civilized  community." 

On  the  other  hand  many  authorities  might  be 
quoted  who  contend  that  leprosy  constitutes  a  con- 
stantly increasing  danger  to  our  country.  The  Chi- 
nese imported  the  disease  into  California  on  an  alarm- 
ing scale,  and  why  may  they  not  spread  it  among  the 
people  of  our  large  cities,  housed  as  they  generally 
are  in  portions  of  cities,  where  they  are  less  liable  to 
sanitary  supervision  than  almost  any  other  part  of 
the  population  ?  The  physicians  who  advocate  pre- 
cautionary measures  are  not  alarmists  or  extremists, 
but  are  men  downright  in  earnest  concerning  the 
danger  and  are  using  their  voice  and  pen  in  the  effort 
to  stop  the  possible  awful  ravages  of  a  disease  that 
has  so  far  baffled  medical  science.  Dr.  Prince  A. 
Morrow  of  New  York,  in  a  paper  read  before  the 
Nev/  York  Academy  of  Science,  on  "Personal 
Observations  of  Leprosy  in  Mexico  and  the  Sandwich 
Islands,"  closes  his  remarks  with  these  words,  which 
I  think  sum  up  in  a  few  sentences  the  most  practical 
advice  concerning  the  danger  of  the  spread  of  leprosy 
in  our  country.  "  I\Iy  own  personal  belief  is  that  the 
extensive  spread  of  leprosy  in  this  country"  must  be 
regarded  a  possibility,  rather  than  a  strong  probabil- 
ity. Still,  in  dealing  with  a  disease  with  which  med- 
ical science  has  shown  its  utter  inability  to   cope, 


The  Menace  of  Leprosy.  51 

except  by  prophylactic  measures,  it  becomes  the 
manifest  duty  of  the  medical  profession,  in  their 
capacity  as  guardians  of  the  public  health,  to 
enlighten  our  legislative  authorities  as  to  this  possi- 
ble danger,  and  urge  them  to  adopt  measures  for  the 
isolation  of  every  leper  in  our  midst,  and  especially 
to  prevent  the  immigration  from  foreign  countries  of 
those  who  bear  in  their  systems  the  seeds  of  this 
frightful  malady. ' ' 


CHAPTER  VII. 


leprosy:   different  forms — how  contracted — 
can  it  be  cured? 

In  tubercular  leprosy,  which  is  the  severest  form, 
death  usually  takes  place  within  nine  years  after  the 
symptoms  are  noted.  The  anaesthetic  form  may 
develop  gradually  and  exist  for  a  long  time  without 
any    marked  decline  of  health.     Twenty-four  years 

has  been  given  as  the  ex- 
treme limit  of  the  latter  form 
by  physicians  who  have  had 
the  opportunity  of  observing 
it  wherever  it  is  endemic. 
Very  often  both  forms  are 
combined.  After  the  first 
few  years,  very  little  pain 
is  felt,  until  the  disease 
strikes  inwardly,  then  it 
becomes  terrible.  Leprosy 
is  dying  by  inches,  a  morti- 
fication by  piece-meal  like  to  that  which  goes  on 
with  dead  bodies  in  the  grave.  Let  an  eye-wit- 
ness of  many  cases  describe  it:  "When  leprosy 
is  fully  developed,  it  is  marked  by  the  presence  of 
dark-red  boils  or  sores  of  different  sizes  upon  the 
face,  lips,  nose,  eyebrows,  ears,  fingers  and  toes. 
The  skin  becomes  wrinkled  and  shining  and  the  fea- 
tures are  very  much  distorted.     The  hair  of  the  eye- 

52 


TUBERCULAR  LEPROSY. 


Leprosy:   Different  Forms — How  Contracted.        53 

brows,  eye-lashes,  and  beard  fall  off,  the  eyes  become 
twisted  in  appearance,  giving  them  a  cat-like  expres- 
sion, the  voice  becomes  harsh  and  nasal,  the  sense  of 
smell  is  impaired  or  lost,  and  that  of  touch  or  com- 
mon sensation  is  strongly  altered.  The  parts  with 
these  ulcers  upon  them  become,  in  the  course  of  the 
disease,  sort  of  paralyzed,  and  ulcers  soften  and  open, 
making  running  sores.  They  attack  the  nose  and 
throat,  becoming  very  offensive.  Cracks  and  ulcers 
appear  on  the  fingers  and  toes,  and  joint  after  joint 
drops  off  by  a  kind  of  gangrene.  It  is  a  singular  but 
fortunate  fact  that  the  leper  suffers  but  little  pain 
until  his  last  days." 

Science  has  made  a  long  and  exhaustive  study  of 
the  subject  in  all  its  forms  and  phases,  but  with  no 
satisfactory  result.  The  surgeon's  knife  and  the 
microscope  have  been  used,  but  without  the  slightest 
advance,  apparently,  towards  anything  like  positive 
knowledge  regarding  the  nature  and  cure  of  the 
dread  disaase.  Even  to  this  day,  doctors  are  not 
agreed  as  to  whether  it  is  contagious  or  not.  Some 
say  yes — some  say  no.  Some  say  it  is  spread  by 
inhalation,  some  say  by  contact,  while  others  as 
strongly  deny.  Some  will  tell  you  that  it  is  of  para- 
sitic origin,  and  claim  to  have  discovered  bacilli  and 
microbes  in  the  tissues  of  the  leprous  subject ;  which, 
they  say,  puts  the  question  as  to  its  character  beyond 
doubt.  Others  discredit  these  discoveries,  or  refuse 
to  acknowledge  that  their  presence,  even  if  proven, 
is  conclusive  evidence  that  such  parasites  are  the 
cause  of  leprosy,  or  that  the  fact  of  their  existence, 
even  if  granted,  would  afford  any  clue  toward  a  sue- 


54  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

cessfui  treatment  of  the  disease.  In  a  word,  the  leper 
of  to-day  is  no  better  off  than  he  was  in  the  time  of 
Moses.  Nothing  more  can  be  done  for  his  malady, 
and  now,  as  then,  he  must  live  and  die  an  outcast 
from  society,  dreaded  as  a  plague  during  life,  and 
abandoned  in  death  by  all  as  an  object  of  loathing 
and  disgust."  Prof.  Herbert  says:  "  Leprosv  has 
its  origin  in  microbes  and  is  contagious,"  and  adds 
that,  "Danielssen,  Boeck,  Helra,  and  \^irschou  have 
denied  that  it  is  contagious  ;  if  so,  how  is  it  propa- 
gated ?  If  not  contagious,  segregation  is  a  stupid 
measure,  utterly  useless  and  shamefully  cruel."  Dr. 
Goto,  the  Japanese  specialist,  has  obtained  at  ^Nlolokai, 
Sandwich  Islands,  a  certain  amount  of  success.  He 
was  employed  by  the  Government  until  last  year  ; 
but  one  who  writes  from  there  sa3's  :  '■  Nobody  has 
been  cured,  but  it  has  apparently  given  a  considerable 
amount  of  relief  It  chieflv  consists  in  taking- warm 
baths  prepared  with  a  particular  solution,  which  is 
the  doctor's  secret.  A  large  amount  of  sulphur  is 
also  put  into  the  baths.  Besides  this,  a  medicine  is 
given  for  internal  use.  But  it  is  the  bathing  which 
seems  to  produce  the  greatest  relief" 

The  "Medical  Bulletin,"  of  Cali,  Colombia,  South 
America,  of  June,  1886,  contained  an  article  on 
leprosy,  of  which  many  cases  are  to  be  found  in  the 
interior  of  that  country.  The  writer  believes  the 
disease  can  be  acquired  without  contact,  and  cites 
the  case  of  a  man  who  had  never  been  in  a  locality 
where  the  disease  exists  and  yet  became  afflicted  with 
it  through  falling  into  a  river  while  heated  from  a 
day's  sport. 


Leprosy:   Different  Forms — How  Contracted.         55 

James  Ryder  Randall,  the  well-known  Southern 
journalist,  and  author  of  that  inspiriting  Southern  war- 
song,  "Maryland,  My  Maryland,"  commenting  upon 
the  articles  that  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the 
"  Catholic  Columbian  "  on  this  subject,  says:  "  As  I 
am  in  the  critical  and  hygienic  mood,  I  may  as  well 
express  some  convictions  of  mine  on  the  subject  of 
leprosy,  which  Father  Mulhane  has  written  of  so 
graphically,  learnedly,  and  interestingly  in  the  '  Co- 
lumbian.' Some  eight  years  ago,  I  suggested  to  a 
Baltimore  physician  that  leprosy  had  its  origin  in 
water-taint.  He  promised  to  investigate  the  matter, 
but  probably  forgot  to  do  so.  As  the  most  eminent 
biological  chemist  in  the  United  States  is  about 
formally  to  declare  that  the  atmosphere  does  not 
germinate  what  is  called  malaria,  but  that  it  is  water- 
borne,  I  hope  to  see  leprosy  scrutinized.  When  I 
suggested  this  to  the  greatest  leper  expert  in  the 
world,  perhaps,  he  was  amazed,  and,  from  evidence  I 
have,  was  subsequently  persuaded  of  its  truth.  In  Mex- 
ico, leprosy  is  directly  traced  to  a  certain  lake  water. 
Some  of  our  priests  or  chemists  should  examine 
scientifically  the  water  sources  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands,  for  example.  Possibly,  I  have  alluded  to 
this  matter  briefly  before,  but  it  is  worth  repeating, 
and  I  hope  that  Father  Mulhane,  unbiased  by  old 
theories,  will  give  it  his  attention.  I  know  the  tradi- 
tionally horrible  surmise  of  its  origin,  but  I  also  know 
that  some  at  least  of  the  victims  are  free  from  such 
reproach.  I  believe  that  the  causes  of  disease  are  as 
simple  as  their  remedies  are,  when  ascertained  ;  but 
there  is  a  tendency  to  complicate  everything,  in  law, 


5^  Leprosy,  a^id  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

physic  and  even  finance.  We  know  well  enough 
what  the  nidus  of  cholera  is,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  leprosy  has  its  initial  propagation  in  noth- 
ing more  mysterious  than  water  peculiarly  contami- 
nated or  poisoned." 

The  following  extracts  are  taken  from  the  report  of 
the  President  of  the  Board  of  Health  of  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  for  the  last  biennial  period,  ending  1894  : 

"Many  eminent  medical  writers  consider  it  to  be 
very  doubtful  that  leprosy  is  hereditary,  but  rather 
believe  that  children,  born  of  lepers,  contract  the 
disease  from  their  parents  during  childhood.  There 
are  certainly  many  reasons  to  believe  so,  if  it  is  con- 
sidered how  few  of  the  children,  born  at  the  settle- 
ment, who  have  been  taken  away  when  young,  have 
developed  the  disease."  Another  important  state- 
ment is  "that  segregation  has  now  been  practiced  for 
about  twenty-six  years,  and  considering  the  natural 
decrease  of  the  native  population,  and  the  number  of 
new  cases  which  annually  occur,  it  would  seem  that, 
in  proportion,  there  is  now  as  much  leprosy  as  at  the 
commencement,  if  not  more."  The  last  report  for 
1895,  says:  "It  is  gratifying  to  report  that  there 
are  indications  that  the  disease  is  becoming  less 
prevalent. ' ' 

ITS   CURE. 

Not  a  single  well-authenticated  case  is  known  that 
has  been  successfully  treated.  The  victim  may  be 
afforded  temporary  relief  by  skillful  dressing  of  his 
sores,  but  nothing  more  can  be  done  for  him. 

Dr.  Ashmead,  of  New  York,  the  noted  leprologist, 
says: 


Leprosy:   Differmi  Forvis — How  Contracted.        57 

"The  Japanese  authors  mention  two  methods  of 
treatment,  or  rather  two  cures.  The  first  was  im- 
ported from  China  in  the  time  of  the  Sung  and  Yuen 
dynasties.  It  consists  in  the  use  of  acupuncture 
needles.  Let  the  patient  sit  down  naked  in  a  dark- 
ened room;  burn  camphor  as  a  light,  and  examine 
the  entire  surface  of  the  body.  In  this  way  the  poison 
under  the  skin  may  be  seen  plainly  by  the  physician. 
Circumscribed  blood-spots  of  various  shapes  will 
appear  beneath  the  skin.  If  they  are  scarlet  the 
poison  is  not  severe;  if  dark  purple  it  is  of  great 
strength.  The  physician  marks  with  ink  the  circum- 
ferences of  these  spots  as  they  are  seen  by  the  reflected 
camphor  light.  The  spots  are  mostly  on  the  face, 
hands,  feet,  and  neck;  very  few  of  them  are  found  on 
the  chest  or  abdomen. 

"Open  the  windows  and  puncture  the  spots  wath 
red-hot  needles;  the  latter,  heated  in  a  charcoal  fire, 
are  used  one  by  one  within  the  marked  places.  Gen- 
erally there  is  no  bleeding  nor  is  there  any  pain  left; 
if  there  is  bleeding  and  pain  the  spot  operated  on  is 
not  leprous.  The  needles  may  be  introduced  even  to 
the  depth  of  an  inch,  without  causing  any  pain. 
After  these  operations  the  patient's  body  shows  high 
temperature,  his  face  reddens,  his  mouth  is  dr}^,  and 
there  is  headache  and  intense  thirst.  Give  him  warm 
water  to  drink,  and  apply  the  hot  flat-top  needle  to 
his  bald  vertex  with  a  quick  touch;  thereupon  he 
feels  relief.  The  needles  are  used  three  days  in  suc- 
cession; on  the  second  day  the  acupunctures  are 
made  in  the  intervals  between  the  first  day  punctures, 
when,    however,    the  needle  cannot   penetrate    deep 


58  Leprosy,  ajid  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

without  causing  pain;  on  the  third  day  again  punc- 
ture in  the  existing  intervals. 

"It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  treatment  must  be 
efficient,  for  it  is  clear  that  if  every  leper  spot,  or,  as 
we  might  say,  every  bacillus,  is  disposed  of,  so  is  the 
disease  itself. 

"The  other  method  consists  in  the  use  of  turpen- 
tine or  boiled  pine  wood.  It  has  been  used  at  least 
for  the  last  2,000  years;  for  Kakko,  who  wrote  in  300 
A.D.,  has  a  mention  of  it  in  his  book  'Prescriptions 
Behind  the  Elbow;'  that  is,  the  pocket  of  the  sleeve. 
We  find  a  mention  of  it  also  in  the  'Thousand  Golden 
Remedies'  compiled  in  Japan  640  A.  D. 

"Take  some  pure  turpentine,  boil  it  in  a  clean  pan 
with  spring  or  rain  water,  keep  stirring  it;  when  it 
becomes  muddy  and  bitter  pour  it  into  cold  water. 
Boil  repeatedly  until  the  liquid  turns  white  and  loses 
its  bitterness.  Dry  in  the  shade;  grind  into  powder, 
and  make  it  fine.  Use  it  thus:  Make  a  soft  boiled 
rice,  mix  the  turpentine  thoroughly  with  it,  and  eat 
freely  of  it.  If  the  patient  is  thirsty  let  him  drink 
nothing  but  pure  water  mixed  with  the  turpentine 
powder.  After  ten  days'  use  if  vomiting  and  purga- 
tion come  on,  they  are  favorable  symptoms.  Resume 
the  treatment  from  time  to  time." 

Dr.  Bouffe,  of  Paris,  claims  that  he  has  discovered 
the  leper  bacillus  in  human  blood  and  has  adopted  a 
"serum"  treatment,  but  no  authority  at  least  on  this 
side  of  the  water  places  any  confidence  or  hope  in  it. 
I  know  of  no  better  statement  of  the  condition  of  the 
subject  as  now  known  to  medical  science  than  that 
of  Dr.  Ashmead,  of  New  York,  made  under  date  of 


Lepro'^y:   Different  Forms — How   Contracted.         59 

July  19,  1896.      He  places  the  entire  case  at  present 
knowledge  as  follows: 

"There  are  but  three  treatments  to-day  on  which 
leprologists  found  their  hopes,  if  they  have  any — the 
European  treatment  of  Goldschmidt,  the  Carrasquilla 
treatment  of  Colombia,  South  America,  and  the 
Kitasato  serum  cure  of  Japan. 

"Goldschmidt  last  December  reported  a  case  cured 
by  the  5  per  cent  europhen  in  oil  in  the  islands  of 
Madeira.  But  as  his  report  was  made  only  five  years 
after  the  alleged  cure,  no  leprologist  accepts  it  as 
authentic.  xA.lvarez,  the  bacteriologist  of  the  Hawaiian 
Board  of  Health,  tells  me  that  he  has  used  it  in  the 
Sandwich  Islands  without  success. 

"The  Carrasquilla  serum  treatment  was  tried  by  Dr. 
Carlos  E.  Putnam,  a  pupil  of  Carrasquilla  in  the 
Aqua  de  Dios  leper  hospital  of  Colombia,  on  forty 
lepers  without  success.  Dr.  Putnam  took  blood  from 
the  arm  of  a  sixteen-year-old  tubercular  leper  in  an 
aseptic  bladder,  let  it  remain  there  until  it  had  set- 
tled, then  drew  the  supernatant  serum  by  syringe 
through  the  wall  of  the  bladder,  and  inoculated  the 
serum  into  two  asses  and  three  she  goats.  His  object 
was,  as  he  wrote  me,  to  increase,  if  possible,  the 
natural  immunity  of  animals  by  the  immunity  which 
a  leper  might  be  supposed  to  have  acquired  in  a 
degree  proportionate  to  the  age  of  the  disease.  I  say 
might  be  supposed;  but  such  an  immunity,  in  any 
degree,  is  but  an  hypothesis. 

"After  several  days  blood  was  drawn  from  these 
animals,  and  forty  lepers  of  different  types  and  grades 
of  disease  were  inoculated  with  the  serum.    This  was 


6o  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

done  November  i  of  last  year.     As  yet  no  result  has 
appeared. 

"  This  treatment  was  first  proposed  in  the  Poly- 
clinic of  Bogota,  July  i,  1895,  by  Dr.  Juan  de  Dios 
Carrasquilla.  It  is  built  upon  the  theory  that  the 
leper  bacillus  can  be  cultivated  in  the  blood  current 
of  an  animal.  No  cultivation  of  the  leper  bacillus 
has  ever  been  made  in  any  other  medium  but  the  hu- 
man tissue.  The  leper  bacillus  has  never  been  found 
in  human  blood.  Thousands  of  animals  of  all  kinds 
— quadrupeds,  birds,  fish,  etc. — have  been  inoculated, 
and  no  result  was  obtained.  I  myself,  a  believer  in 
the  intermediary  host-function  of  the  fish  theory, 
inoculated  fish  with  the  leper  bacillus,  but  without 
success.  Even  human  beings  have  been  objects  of 
this  experimentation.  In  these  cases,  when  leprosy 
followed  only  after  many  years,  it  was,  of  course,  im- 
possible to  say  that  it  was  due  to  the  operation  or  to 
the  development  of  the  previously  existing  germ.  So 
much  for  the  Carrasquilla  theory,  which,  as  you  see, 
was  built  upon  the  possible  cultivation  of  the  germ 
in  the  animal  blood. 

"Dr.  Putnam's  theory  is  founded  on  the  possibility 
of  increasing  the  natural  immunity  of  the  animal  by 
inoculating  it  with  the  probable  acquired  immunity 
of  the  leper. 

"  The  two  theories  are  essentially  different,  although 
the  application  is  the  same  for  both. 

' '  Dr.  Jules  Goldschmidt,  who  spent  twenty-six 
years  on  the  Island  of  Madeira,  in  charge  of  Portu- 
guese lepers,  writes:  'The  Carrasquilla  serum,  or  any 
treatment  by  serum  in  leprosy,  is,  according  to  my 


Leprosy:  Different  Forms — How  Contracted.        6 1 

experience,  perfectly  inadmissible.  Till  nowadays — 
and  there  is  not  the  slightest  proof  to  the  contrary — 
the  Hansen  bacillus  has  never  been  cultivated,  and 
animals  are  quite  "refractaires. "  How  on  earth  can 
it  be  possible  under  such  conditions  to  obtain  a 
"serum"?  You  remember  what  I  said  about  "  lep- 
rine"  in  my  book  "La  Lepre"  ?  But  this  "  leprine" 
is  to  be  compared  to  the  "  tuberculine,"  and  has  no 
affinity  with  a  serum. 

" '  There  must  be  some  fundamental  misunder- 
standing regarding  "leprosy  serum." 

"  Dr.  Havelburg,  the  bacteriologist  of  the  Hospital 
dos  Lazaros,  Rio  Janeiro,  says  in  a  letter  to  me  of 
date  May  26  last:  '  Regarding  serumtherapy,  I  am 
thoroughly  skeptical.  In  regard  to  leprosy,  we  hardly 
could  talk  of  such  as  long  as  the  culture  of  the  lepra 
bacillus  has  not  been  made.  Those  experiments  in 
Colombia,  South  America,  appear  to  me  to  be  very 
naive.     I  neither  believe  in  nor  trust  them. ' 

"As  to  the  Kitasato* serum  cure,  it  is  not  original, 
being  simply  based  upon  Behring's  idea  of  the  anti- 
toxine  diphtheria  serum.  No  advance  has  been  made 
nor  is  likely  to  be. 

"Dr.  Goto's  'Japanese  treatment,'  which  consisted 
of  systems  of  baths  and  tonic  and  eliminative  treat- 
ment, has  had  a  fair  trial  in  Hawaii  and  has  failed. 
Dr.  Goto  had  been  taken  from  Japan  by  the  Ha- 
waiian government  and  given  full  opportunity  to 
apply  his  methods. 

"The  antivenom  'treatment  of  Calmette  and 
Fraser'  was  never  tried,  but  a  treatment  almost  iden- 
tical has  been  known  in  Japan  for  a  thousand  years, 


62  Lepfosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

It  consists  in  dissolving  the  snake  niamiishi  in  wine 
and  using  this  solution  internally.  No  favorable 
results  were  ever  recorded. 

"  Dr.  Carreau,  of  Guadeloupe,  noting  that  a  leper's 
skin  became  smoother  after  being  bitten  by  a  viper, 
which  eventually  killed  the  man,  thought  that  bv 
using  a  remedy  that  would  act  in  the  same  way  as 
the  viper  poison;  that  is,  by  increasing  considerably 
the  amount  of  hemoglobine  in  the  blood,  grand  re- 
sults might  be  obtained.  He  used  the  chlorate  of 
potassa,  a  drug  which  has  such  an  effect,  but  this  also 
was  unsuccessful. 

"These  are  the  only  known  remedies  upon  which, 
in  late  daj^s,  the  hopes  of  leprologists  were  built. 

"We  are  thrown  back,  even  now,  on  the  old  India 
treatment,  the  cJiaitlmoog-"a  oil,  which  is  one  main- 
stay in  the  treatment  of  leprosy.  It  does  not  cure, 
because  the  disease  is  incurable." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

LEPROSY  AS  DISCUSSED    BY   THE    PAN-AMERICAN  MED- 
ICAL   CONGRESS. 

In  the  report  of  "The  Transactions  of  the  First 
Pan-American  Medical  Congress,"  held  in  Washing- 
ton City  in  1893,  much  valuable  information  can  be 
found  upon  this  subject. 

Dr.  Beaven  Rake,  of  London,  Medical  Superinten- 
dent of  the  Trinidad  Leper  Asylum,  late  member  of 
the  Indian  Leprosy  Commission,  read  a  paper  on  "The 
Communicability  of  Leprosy,"  in  which  he  says:  "To 
Hansen  of  Bergen  is  due  the  epoch-making  discovery 
of  the  leprosy  bacillus  and  the  inauguration  of  a  new 
and  scientific  study  of  the  disease.  In  1880  he  was 
able  definitely  to  announce  the  discovery  of  a  specific 
bacillus  in  leprosy.  And  Neisser,  in  the  autumn  and 
winter  of  the  same  year,  working  at  the  San  Lazara 
Leper  Hospital  at  Granada,  Spain,  confirmed  Hansen's 
results  and  applied  the  anilin-colors  tests,  which  have 
since  been  recognized  as  distinguishing  the  bacilli  of 
leprosy  and  tuberculosis  from  those  of  other  diseases. 
Since  then  Hansen's  discovery  has  been  confirmed  by 
observers  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  it  may  now  be 
affirmed  that  the  leprosy  bacillus  is  present  in  some 
part  or  parts  of  the  body  of  every  leper  at  some  period 
or  other  in  the  course  of  the  disease."      Dr.  Rake,  in 

his   paper,    goes  into    detail  concerning    the    results 

63 


64  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

which  have  attended  the  attempted  cultivation  of  the 
bacillus  of  leprosy.  Culture  experiments  were  not 
very  satisfactory,  as  when  introduced  into  the  body  of 
a  healthy  animal,  they  did  not  produce  the  disease. 
At  the  Trinidad  Asylum,  the  doctor  inoculated  cats, 
pigs,  rabbits,  bats,  fowls,  a  parrot  and  a  dog  with 
pieces  of  cutaneous  nodules  and  the  discharge  from 
the  ulcers.  But  he  says  from  a  consideration  of  all 
evidence,  he  must  conclude  with  Besnier  that  leprosy 
is  an  essentially  humian  disease  and  cannot  be  trans- 
mitted to  animals.  He  concludes  his  paper  by  stating 
that  the  risk  of  communicability  of  leprosy  is  so  small 
that  for  practical  purposes  it  may  be  disregarded,  and 
that  for  an  explanation  of  the  occurrence  of  new  cases 
we  must  look  to  causes  other  than  association  of  the 
healthy  with  the  lepers.  In  the  discussion  that  fol- 
lowed many  of  the  doctors  present  dissented  from  this 
view.  Dr.  Politzer  said:  "I  believe  in  certain  local- 
ities leprosy  bacilli  are  always  present  outside  the 
body,  and  that  residents  in  these  localities  are  con- 
stantly taking  the  bacilli  into  their  respiratory  pas- 
sages mixed  with  dust,  or  into  their  alimentary  canals 
in  food  or  water." 

Dr.  Geo.  W..  Woods,  Medical  Inspector,  United 
States  Navy,  in  his  paper,  says:  "The  facts  and  the 
reports  of  independent  observers  in  all  lands  where 
leprosy  exists,  demonstrating  that  we  are  in  a  period 
of  extension  of  this  disease,  call  upon  the  medical 
profession  in  all  lands  to  arouse  the  people  and  work 
with  the  government  for  its  repression.  The  views 
entertained  on  the  subject  have  been  so  widely  at 
variance,   that  a  British  leprosy  commission  was  or- 


Discussed  by  the  Pan- -Imerican  Medical  Congress.   65 

ganized  and  sent  to  India  in  1890,  which  has  but  re- 
cently reported  the  result  of  its  labors  and  its  con- 
clusions. The  commission  was  composed  of  members 
of  the  colleges  of  physicians  and  surgeons  of  London, 
Indian  medical  officers,  and  representatives  of  the 
"English  Leprosy  Fund."  A  year  was  spent  in  the 
investigation,  2,000  lepers  were  examined  and  answers 
to  carefully  prepared  interrogatories  were  received 
from  a  majority  of  the  medical  officers  of  the  Indian 
Civil  Service  and  the  medical  officers  of  the  army.  A 
wider  or  a  more  complete  field  for  a  harvest  of  knowl- 
edge can  not  be  conceived,  extended  by  interrogatories 
addressed  tc  the  other  colonies  and  countries  similarily 
affected,  and  the  conclusions  of  the  commission  are 
thus  summarized:  (i)  Leprosy  is  2l  ^iso^diS^  si li generis ; 
it  is  not  a  form  of  syphilis  or  tuberculosis,  but  has 
striking  etiological  analogies  with  the  latter.  (2) 
Leprosy  is  not  diffused  by  hereditary  transmission,  and 
for  this  reason  and  the  established  amount  of  sterility 
among  lepers,  the  disease  has  a  natural  tendency  to 
die  out.  (3)  Though  in  a  scientific  classification  of 
disease  leprosy  must  be  regarded  as  contagious  and 
also  inoculable,  yet  the  extent  to  which  it  is  propa- 
gated by  these  means  is  exceedingly  small.  (4) 
Leprosy  is  not  directly  originated  by  the  use  of  any 
particular  article  of  food,  nor  by  any  climatic  or 
telluric  condition,  nor  by  unsanitary  surroundings; 
neither  does  it  peculiarly  affect  any  race,  or  caste.  (5) 
Leprosy  is  indirectly  influenced  by  unsanitary  sur- 
roundings, such  as  poverty,  bad  food,  or  deficient 
drainage  or  ventilation,  for  these,  by  causing  a  predis- 
position, increase  the  susceptibility  of  the  individual 


66  Leprosy,  ayid  the  Chanty  of  the  Church. 

to  the  disease.     (6)  Leprosy  in  the  great  majority  of 
cases  originates  de  7iovo;  that  is,  from  a  sequence  or 
concurrence  of  causes  or  conditions,  dealt  with  in  the 
reports,  and  which  are  related  to  each  other  in  ways 
at  present  imperfectly  known."    Dr.  Woods,  who  has 
spent  much  time  at  the  leper  settlement  of  Molokai, 
agrees  with   the  first  and  second  conclusions  of  the 
British  Leprosy  Commission.     To  the  third,  he  says: 
"Hawaiian  experience  compels  an  entire  dissent  to 
the  statement  that  "its  propagation  by  these  means 
is  exceedingly  small,"  for  there  is  every  evidence  that 
it  has  thus  spread  over  the  island.      Fourth,  the  con- 
clusion, undoubtedly   not   to    be    controverted,    that 
leprosy  has  not  its  origin  in  any  particular  article  of 
food  or  in  any  climate,  with  the  exception  that  a  dry 
situation,  with  a  high  temperature,  is  favorable  to  stay- 
ing the  progress  of  the  disease,  is  sustained.    He  agrees 
with   the  fifth    conclusion.     To  the  sixth,   he    says: 
That  leprosy  arises  de  novo^  according  to  the  commis- 
sioners, has  only  to  be  mentioned  to  arouse  a  smile  of 
derision  and  is  a  most  impotent  conclusion  to  valu- 
able work,  which  has  rather  sustained  previously  ex- 
pressed opinions  of  eminent  students  of  this  disease 
rather  than  added  to  knowledge  of  the  subject.      As 
regards   prophylaxis,    the  commission  recommended 
perfect  hygiene  and  segregation,  which  is   all    that 
Hawaiian  medical  men  have  found  from  experience 
to  be  worthy  of  consideration;  and  with  reference  to 
therapeusis  the  same   conclusion  has  been    reached, 
viz. :  no  cure.    That  the  various  oils   recommended, 
especially  Chaulmoogra  oil  and    arsenic,  are  pallia- 
tives, and    all    the    other    proposed   remedies    have 


Discussed  by  the  Pan-American  Medical  Congress.   67 

proved  utter  failures.  Dr.  Woods  further  says  Dr. 
Arning,  of  Hamburg,  failed  in  his  cultivation  of  the 
bacillus  in  an  artificial  soil  and  also  in  the  inoculation 
of  the  lower  animals,  but  apparently  succeeded  with  a 
criminal,  Kenan  by  name,  whose  sentence  of  death 
was  commuted  to  penal  servitude  in  consideration  of 
his  consenting  to  experimental  inoculation  with  the 
bacillus.  Dr.  Arning' s  experiment  established  the 
wonderful  vitality  of  the  bacillus  leprae  and  its  extra- 
ordinary power  of  resisting  putrefaction,  an  examin- 
ation of  the  dead  showing  the  germs  to  be  in  a  state 
of  activit}''  after  three  months  of  interment.  This  ob- 
servation may  be  of  great  importance  in  any  inquiry 
into  the  etiology  of  leprosy.  As  regards  the  case  of 
Kenan,  he  was  inoculated  September  30,  1884,  and 
in  March,  1885,  microscopic  examination  revealed  the 
bacillus  in  large  numbers  near  the  spot  of  the  inocula- 
tion, and  again  fourteen  months  afterward,  though 
there  were  no  evidences  of  leprosy.  Later  and  after 
Dr.  Arning' s  departure  Kenan  became  a  developed 
leper  and  subsequently  died  of  the  disease.  This  case 
promised  to  be  one  of  great  importance  as  establish- 
ing the  contagion  or  inoculability  of  leprosy,  but  in- 
vestigation, made  subsequent  to  Dr.  Arning' s  depart- 
ure, seems  to  prove  that  Kenan  came  from  a  leper 
family  by  heredity,  if  that  be  admitted  as  a  factor,  or 
like  exposure  to  cause,  if  we  wish  to  exclude  con- 
tagion— may  have  been  affected  with  the  disease.  No 
such  experiment,  however,  was  necessary  to  an  un- 
prejudiced observer  of  Hawaiian  leprosy  to  prove  the 
truth  of  contagion." 

Two   cases   were   reported   to   the    Pan-American 


68  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Chiwch. 

Congress,  perhaps  similar  to  the  New  Lexington 
(Ohio)  cases  already  alluded  to  in  a  previous  chapter. 
One  has  been  reported  by  Dr.  Benson  in  Dublin.  A 
man  returned  from  service  in  India  and  developed 
leprosy.  His  brother,  who  had  never  been  out  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  slept  in  the  same  bed  with  him  and 
about  two  years  afterwards  this  brother  also  became  a 
leper.  The  cases  were  shown  at  the  Dublin  Medical 
Society,  and  there  seems  to  have  been  no  doubt^  as  to 
the  diagnosis,  for  doctors  were  present  who  hcid  seen 
leprosy  abroad.  The  second  case  occurred  in  Mary- 
land and  was  reported  by  Dr.  Atkinson.  A  woman 
who  had  not  been  out  of  the  country  became  leprous 
some  years  after  contact  with  a  leper.  In  ]\Iaryland 
we  know  that  leprosy  is  not  endemic,  and  yet  it  must 
be  remembered  that  there  are  hundreds  of  doctors, 
nurses  and  attendants  in  constant  contact  with  lepers, 
but  these  never  develop  the  disease.  Joseph  Dutton, 
the  companion  of  Father  Damien  on  the  island  of 
Molokai,  says  in  a  private  letter:  "  Some  years  ago 
I  thought  there  were  some  signs  of  leprosy  coming 
over  me,  in  fact,  there  were  some  signs,  and  one  of 
them  is  not  yet  fully  explained.  Others  signified 
nothing  after  a  lapse  of  time  and  all  have  passed  away. 
For  the  past  five  years  or  more  there  has  been  nothing 
with  me  indicating  a  suspicion  of  leprosy.  Indeed, 
I  am  beginning  to  think  I  am  in  some  way  or 
other  fortified  against  it,  for  surely  no  one  could  have 
had,  in  a  legitimate  manner,  more  opportunity  for 
taking  it  as  in  attending  the  sick,  dressing  sores, 
etc.,  and  in  eating  the  common  food  handled  and 
cooked  by  lepers,  as  I  have  done."     Dr.  Hugus,  of 


Discussed  by  the  Pan-American  Medical  Congress.   69 

Ravenna,  Ohio,  who  spent  three  and  one-half  years 
on  the  Hawaiian  Islands  in  the  employ  of  the  Govern- 
ment, in  a  private  letter,  says  of  leprosy:  "As  to  its 
contagiousness,  I  am  satisfied  that  it  is  so,  however, 
but  to  a  slight  extent.  With  my  hands  intact  and 
skin  unbroken,  I  would  have  no  fear  of  handling  a 
leprous  patient,  but  with  any  sores  upon  them,  I 
would  be  rather  chary.  I  am  satisfied  that  with 
proper  enforcement  of  the  laws  already  existing  on 
the  Islands  and  the  enforcement  of  the  law  of  segrega- 
tion, leprosy  would  in  time  be  unknown  there.  That 
state  of  affairs  must,  however,  come  about  by  the 
death  of  those  now  afflicted  by  the  disease,  as  there 
is,  in  my  opinion,  no  known  cure  of  the  disease.  Of 
another  thing,  I  am  satisfied  there  are  to-day  more 
lepers  at  large  in  the  United  States  than  are  on  the 
Hawaiian  Islands.  Since  having  seen  the  disease,  I 
am  well  satisfied  that  some  twenty  years  ago,  we  had 
a  leper  a  few  miles  from  this  place  (Ravenna,  Ohio)." 


"THE  SINGING  LEPKR." 

By  Eleanor  C.  Donnelly. 

Deep  in  the  heart  of  a  solitude, 

A  huntsman,  straying,  found 
A  dying  leper  in  a  wood, 

Stretched,  singing,  on  the  ground. 

Yea,  singing  on  a  bed  of  ferns, 
In  strains  so  sweet  and  strong, 

That  never  had  the  huntsman  heard 
So  ravishing  a  song: 

' '  I  see  a  glory  in  the  air. 

And  in  the  midst  thereof, 
A  radiant  Face.     O  grave  and  fair  ! 
How  full  of  pitying  love  ! ' ' 

So  ran  the  words.     The  strong  man  stooped 
Above  the  leprous  thing  ; 
"  God  save  thee,  brother  of  the  worms, 
How  canst,  forsaken,  sing?  " 

Out  of  the  pallid  lips,  the  sweet 
Unearthly  whisper  stole: 
"  There's  nothing  save  this  wall  of  flesh 
'Twixt  heaven  and  my  soul: 

"  This  foul,  corrupted  wall  of  flesh — 
Behold  !  it  drops  away. 
Should  not  the  ransomed  captive  sing  ? 
I  shall  be  free  to-day  !  " 

And  even  as  the  huntsman  gazed, 

Loosed  was  the  singer's  soul  ; 

A  shower  of  lilies  hid  the  corse — 

The  leper  was  made  whole. 
70 


FATHER   DAMIEN. 


PART   II. 


THE  CHARITY  OF  THE  CHURCH  TO 
THE  VICTIMS  OF  LEPROSY. 


CHAPTER   I. 


CARE   OF   LEPERS. 

Hospitals  for  the  relief  of  lepers  seem  to  have  been 
unknown  among  the  nations  of  antiquity.  Almost 
from  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  pious 
associations  were  organized  for  the  care  of  these  un- 
fortunates and  the  great  writer,  Pierre  de  Belloy,  in 
his  work,  "Origin  and  Institution  of  Different  Orders 
of  Chivalry,"  mentions  an  Order  of  St.  Lazarus, 
founded  in  the  year  72  A,  D. ,  so  called  from  Lazarus, 
the  beggar  mentioned  in  St.  Luke,  xvii:2i:  "And 
there  was  a  certain  beggar  named  Lazarus  who  lay 
at  his  gate  full  of  sores."  These  orders  and  homes 
were  consecrated  to  St.  Lazarus,  hence  the  name — 
Lazarettoes — or  to  Job,  for  many  were  of  the  opinion 
that  Job's  disease  was  leprosy,  and  of  such  malignity 
as  rendered  it  incurable  and  so  produced  a  complica- 
tion of  diseases.  Matthew  Paris  says  that  at  one  time 
there  were  nine  thousand  hospitals  or  lazarettoes  in 
Europe.  The  victims  were  separated  from  their 
friends  and  obliged  by  law  to  keep  close  to  the  hos- 


74  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

pitals;  they  had  marks  fixed  upon  their  garments 
whereby  they  might  be  known,  and  generally  carried 
a  little  bell  or  clapper  with  them,  that  they  might 
announce  their  coming  and  so  be  avoided.  The 
Council  of  Orleans,  in  549,  and  that  of  Lyons,  in  583, 
prescribed  to  the  church  authorities  the  duty  of 
clothing  and  supporting  lepers. 

The  Crusaders  brought  the  disease  from  the  East 
into  Europe,  and  they  afterward  established  a  mili- 
tary order  of  St.  Eazarus  at  Jerusalem,  in  the  early 
part  of  the  12th  century,  whose  duty  it  was  to  take 
charge  of  the  victims  and  their  asylums  in  the  Holy 
Land.  These  Knights  of  St.  Lazarus,  after  being 
driven  out  of  Palestine,  established  themselves  in 
France  and  instituted  a  celebrated  lazaretto  outside 
the  gates  of  Paris,  Afterward,  under  the  protection 
of  several  Popes,  they  settled  in  Sicily  and  lower 
Italy,  but  with  the  disappearance  of  the  disease  they 
lost  their  distinctive  religious  and  charitable  charac- 
ter, in  accordance  with  which  their  constitution  re- 
quired the  Grand  Master  to  be  a  leper.  Glorious  age 
of  Christianity  !  What  power  !  What  sacrifice  that 
thus  could  organize  men  to  look  after  the  victims  of 
dread  leprosy — that  awful  disease  that  science  cannot 
prevent !  Medicine  and  skill  can  stay  the  ravages  of 
smallpox,  curb  cholera  and  yellow  fever,  ward  off"  the 
attacks  of  hydrophobia,  but  God  alone  can  cure  leprosy. 
■'There  were  ten  lepers  and  are  they  not  now  clean?" 
But  even  in  the  days  of  the  "Ages  of  Faith,"  the 
leper  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  was 
completely  and  forever  an  outcast  from  the  world,  be- 
ing considered  both  legally  and  politically  a  dead  per- 


Care  of  Lepers.  75 

son.  He  was  forbidden  from  entering  any  place 
where  food  was  being  prepared,  from  dipping  his  hand 
in  any  running  water,  and  from  taking  up  any  food 
or  any  other  necessary  article  without  using  a  stick 
or  fork. 

Ivcroy  de  la  Marche  :  "La  lycpre  et  les  Lepros- 
eries" — Paris,  1892,  says:  "Michelet  and  his  school 
have  seized  on  the  phantom  of  leprosy,  shaking  it, 
just  as  the  leper  himself  used  to  shake  his  rattle  to 
frighten  the  passer-by.  According  to  these  writers 
leprosy  was  a  consequence  of  the  filthiness  of  our  an- 
cestors. People  never  washed  in  the  Middle  Ages  ; 
therefore  leprosy  was  the  result  of  a  spontaneous  gen- 
eration in  the  dung-hill  on  which  society  was  rotting. 
And  since  the  Catholic  Church  had  formed  medieval 
society  to  her  own  image,  she  alone  was  responsible 
for  the  ravages  of  the  terrible  malady.  And  the 
church  not  only  originated  leprosy  but  she  persecuted 
its  victims.  She  thrust  the  unfortunates  into  loath- 
some huts,  banishing  them  forever  from  human  soci- 
ety; she  cruelly  condemned  them  to  be  devoured  by 
the  fire  in  their  frames,  augmenting  their  physical 
sufferings  by  the  tortures  of  perpetual  solitude.  The 
theme  has  become  hackneyed." 

Rev.  Reuben  Parsons,  D.D.,  in  a  recent  number 
of  the  "Ave  Maria,"  gives  an  account  of  a  document 
discovered  in  1891  by  M.  Abel  lycfranc,  giving  the 
rules  for  the  leper  house  of  Noyou,  which  had  been 
composed  by  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  that  place — 1250- 
1272.  In  those  days  no  person  made  a  will  without 
leaving  some  legacy  to  charitable  institutions  and  es- 
pecially to  leper-hospitals.     The  lepers  formed  a  sort 


76  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

of  religious  confraternity  under  the  immediate  direc- 
tion of  the  bishop,  but  the  immediate  superintendence 
of  the  community,  lepers  and  all,  was  confided  to  a 
"Master"  and  to  a  "Council,"  all  elected  by  the 
lepers.  All  who  were  able  took  their  meals  in  the 
refector}^  The  inmates  wore  a  uniform,  but  this 
dress  presented  nothing  of  that  sombre  and  repulsive 
aspect  of  which  we  often  hear.  Each  leper  had  an 
excellent  bed  and  plenty  of  clean  linen.  No  leper 
was  allowed  to  enter  the  kitchen  or  the  bakery,  but 
all  the  rest  of  the  establishment  was  open  to  them. 
Every  possible  provision  was  made  for  the  most 
minute  and  scrupulous  cleanliness  of  person  as  well 
as  of  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  institution.  The 
utmost  care  was  devoted  to  the  spiritual  interests  of 
the  lepers.  They  had  a  beautiful  church  and  a  chap- 
lain always  at  hand.  Games  of  chance  were  prohib- 
ited, but  all  other  means  of  recreation  were  provided. 
In  the  preface  to  a  little  work — "The  Eeper  Queen, 
or  the  Eegend  of  Aleidis, "  the  writer  gives  this  de- 
scription of  the  care  of  the  church  for  the  welfare  of 
the  poor  lepers.  The  misery  of  these  poor  outcasts, 
as  witnessed  in  his  own  land,  touched  the  loving 
heart  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  who  induced  his  breth- 
ren to  provide  out  of  their  poverty  hospitals  and  sus- 
tenance for  the  lepers  near  the  convents  and  monas- 
teries of  their  order.  Hence,  arose  the  "  Homes  for 
the  Christian  Brethren,  which  became  the  coveted 
refuge  of  these  unhappy  beings  and  eventually 
superseded  the  pest-houses,  whose  very  existence  had 
borne  testimony  to  the  demoralization  which  fear  can 
produce  among  men. 


Care  of  Lepers.  77 

They  were  usuUy  erected  under  the  shelter  of  a 
mountain,  or  near  the  outskirts  of  a  forest,  but  as  far 
as  possible  from  the  highways,  and  as  a  matter  of 
course,  in  a  district  remote  from  any  village  or  town. 

The  building  contained  one  large  hall,  surrounded 
by  the  benches  of  stone  or  wood  that  formed  its  only 
furniture,  and  lighted  by  apertures,  placed  high  to 
prevent  the  escape  of  any  of  the  inmates.  Ingress 
was  afforded  by  a  single  door  to  this  den  of  horrors, 
whence  egress,  alas  !  there  could  be  none,  except  in 
case  of  death,  and  then  the  corpse  of  the  poor  creature 
thus  happily  released,  appears  to  have  been  borne  out 
and  buried  within  the  precincts  of  what  was  most 
truly  their  prison-house  by  his  surviving  companions, 
who  probably  envied  his  lot. 

Of  chaplains  or  spiritual  aid  provided  for  the  in- 
mates of  the  pest-houses  no  mention  is  made.  For 
clothing  and  sustenance  they  were  left  to  the  alms  of 
the  charitable  and  the  affection  of  relatives  or  friends 
— a  sadly  precarious  dependence  in  such  troublous 
times,  and  these  were  handed  through  an  opening  in 
the  door,  made  "at  the  height  of  a  man's  face,"  by 
means  of  a  long  pole,  by  the  donor  or  his  almoner, 
who  stood  outside  a  fence  at  a  distance  of  ten  feet 
from  the  pest-house.  No  other  communication  than 
this  was  allowed  with  the  outside  world.  And  truly 
few  outsiders  availed  themselves  of  even  so  much. 
In  the  hospitals  erected  by  the  charity  of  the  Friars 
Minor,  small  cells,  each  only  large  enough  to  accommo- 
date one  person,  were  raised  on  a  plot  of  ground  at  no 
great  distance  from  the  convent. 

Each   cell   was  surrounded  by  a  fence  at  the  pre^ 


yS  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

scribed  distance  of  ten  feet,  and  provided  with  a  stone 
bench,  a  bed  and  a  crucifix,  for  the  comfort  and  de- 
votion of  the  inmate.  A  kind  of  turn  near  the  door, 
in  which  a  daily  supply  of  food  and  .water  was  depos- 
ited, with  a  pitcher  and  a  wooden  cup,  completed  the 
furniture  of  these  humble  abodes,  for  whose  occupants 
the  title  of  The  Poor  Brethren.,  by  which  they  are  gen- 
erally called,  was  surely  a  fitting  one.  At  fixed 
hours,  a  lay  brother,  or  a  testiary  of  St.  Francis, 
passed  from  one  to  the  other  of  the  cells,  armed  with 
a  pole,  similar  to  those  carried  by  the  man-hunters, 
and  followed  by  an  attendant  laden  with  provisions 
and  such  remedies  as  might  alleviate  the  misery  of 
the  sufferers  in  some  degree. 

The  lepers  were  visited  from  time  to  time  by  such 
of  the  friars  as  were  deemed  most  skillful  in  leech- 
craft,  and  if  anyone,  as  in  rare  cases  happened,  was 
found  on  careful  examination  to  have  been  healed,  he 
or  she  were  transferred  to  a  lodging  apart  from  those 
appropriated  to  the  plague-stricken,  and  after  a  suffi- 
cient probation,  if  no  trace  of  the  disease  reappeared, 
was  suffered  once  more  to  go  at  large. 


CHAPTER   II. 


SANDWICH    ISLANDS. 


I  can  give  no  better  idea  of  the  charity  of  the 
Church  towards  the  victims  of  the  awful  scourge  of 
leprosy  than  by  reprinting  an  article  of  mine  on 
Father  Damien,  known  now,  since  his  death,  as  the 
leper-priest — the  hero  of  Molokai.  It  appeared  orig- 
inally in  the  columns  of  the  "  Catholic  Columbian." 

The  hero  of  Molokai,  Father  Joseph  Damien  de 
Veuster,  was  born  at  Tremeloo,  Louvain,  Belgium, 
January  3,  1840.  At  nineteen  years  of  age  he  was  a 
student  at  the  famous  Catholic  University  at  lyouvain. 
Having  received  minor  orders,  and  belonging  to  the 
missionary  society  of  the  Sacred  Hearts  of  Jesus  and 
Mary,  under  whose  care  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel 
in  the  Sandwich  Islands  had  been  placed,  he  offered 
himself  as  a  missionary  in  place  of  an  older  brother, 
who  was  prevented  by  sickness  from  going  to  Hono- 
lulu. 

Arriving  there  as  soon  as  he  was  of  the  required 
age,  he  was  ordained  priest  by  the  Bishop  and  per- 
formed the  ordinary  duties  of  a  missionary  priest 
until  1873.  In  that  year  he  was  present  at  the  dedi- 
cation of  a  little  chapel  on  the  Island  of  Maui  and 
heard  the  Bishop  express  a  regret  that  he  was  unable 
to  send  a  priest  to  the  leper  settlement  on  the  Island 

of  Molokai.     He  at  once   offered  himself.     He  was 

79 


8o  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

accepted,  and,  with  the  Bishop  and  the  French  Con- 
sul, set  out  in  a  boat  loaded  with  cattle  for  Kalaupapa, 
the  port  of  the  leper  settlement. 

At  a  public  meeting  of  the  eight  hundred  lepers, 
half  of  whom  were  Catholics,  the  Bishop  said:  "Since 
you  have  written  me  so  often  for  a  priest,  I  have  at 
last  brought  you  one. "  Father  Damien  bade  good- 
bye to  the  Bishop,  and  as  the  boat  left  the  harbor  he 
turned  at  once  to  begin  work  and  enter  upon  his  new 
mission,  knowing  full  well  that  he  must  sooner  or 
later  contract  leprosy,  so  loathsome  that  it  has  been 
said:  "Corruption  could  go  no  further,  nor  flesh 
suffer  deeper  dishonor  this  side  of  the  grave. ' ' 

He  had  no  church,  no  house,  no  purse.  He  slept 
for  some  weeks  under  a  pandaniLs  (screw- pine)  tree, 
under  which  his  body  now  rests,  within  shadow  of  his 
little  church,  built  by  his  own  hands  and  watched  ten- 
derly by  his  American  friend,  Joseph  B.  Button.  The 
flowers  of  the  tropics  nod  their  heads  above  his  mortal 
remains,  the  booming  of  the  waves  of  the  Pacific  as 
they  roll  upon  the  coral  reef  shore  is  softened  by  the 
prayers  of  the  lepers  as  they  gather  in  the  evening 
twilight  about  that  little  mound,  under  whose  green 
turf  rests  the  body  of  one  of  earth's  great  heroes,  one 
of  God's  noble  priests. 

Father  Damien  found  the  situation  deplorable.  At 
the  base  of  the  cliffs,  three  thousand  feet  high,  at  the 
northern  extremity  of  Molokai  island,  juts  out  into 
the  ocean  a  peninsula  three  miles  long  and  one  mile 
wide,  and  here  he  found  two  leper  villages:  Kalau- 
papa, for  those  in  the  earliest  stages  of  the  disease, 
and  Kalawao,  for  those  in  the  last  and  severest.      The 


Sandwich  Isla?ids.  8i 

crater  of  an  extinct  volcano  lies  between  the  villages. 
The  whole  point  of  land  has  been  likened  to  the 


handle  of  a  frying-pan.     Another  calls  it  a  crust  over 
the  water  with  a  bubble  in  the  midst.     Two  hundred 


82  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

acres  of  tillable  land  down  between  the  villages  were 
fenced  in  and  Father  Damien  set  the  men  and  boys 
yet  able  to  work  to  cultivate  it.  The  Government 
also  sent  him  some  cattle.  He  found  the  lepers 
sheltered  in  miserable  huts,  built  by  themselves  from 
the  branches  of  the  castor-oil  trees  and  covered  with 
the  leaves  of  sugar-cane.  The  death-rate  was  great, 
the  strong  ones  forgot  the  weak,  and  brute  force 
reigned  supreme. 

The  people  of  Honolulu  sent  rather  Damien  some 
lumber  and  $120,  wnth  which  he  himself  built  a  house 
that  served  as  a  temporan-  chapel  and  headquarters 
for  giving  out  medicine  and  supplies.  He  then  began 
his  eloquent  pleas  to  the  authorities  for  aid,  which 
were  finally,  to  some  extent,  listened  to  and  a  change 
for  the  better  commenced.  He  looked  a:':±r  the 
helpless,  consoled  them  in  their  last  agon}  :  :':en 

dug  their  graves.  The  Government  sent  h::::  ..  i^^ian- 
tit}-  of  lumber,  and  he  himself,  assisted  by  the  lepers, 
built  them  comfortable  little  cottages.  He  started  a 
school  with  about  forty  pupils.  The  supply  of  water 
was  very  bad  and  had  to  be  brought  on  the  backs  of 
the  lepers  for  a  long  distance.  This  ht  remedied  by 
constructing  a  reservoir  on  the  cliff  side,  seven  t\'-two 
by  fifh-five  feet,  and  piping  it  to  the  settlement. 
Food  and  clothi^  were  procured  from  the  Govern- 
ment, and  a  store  established. 

An  allowance  of  six  dollars  a  year  was  granted  to 
each  leper  for  clothes,  and  $1,000  was  invested  to  lay 
in  the  first  stock  of  his  store,  which  the  Govern  me": 
loaned  him,  and  the  store  was  soon  self-supporting. 
He  also  succeeded  in  interesting  charitable  persons  in 


Sandwich  Islands.  83 

Europe  and  America,  and  they  sent  supplies  of  cast- 
off  clothing  and  reading  matter  for  the  lepeis.  Before 
1878 — that  is  for  five  yeais — Father  Damien  was  also 
the  doctor  of  the  leper  colony,  bnt  after  that  date 
regnlar  physicians  A^ere  appointed  hy  the  Board  of 
Health  of  Honolulu  to  visit  the  colony  at  regular 
intervals.  He  was  their  ruler,  their  doctor,  their 
priesL  He  punished  the  guilty,  he  settled  disputes, 
he  was  judge  and  jur^-  —as  w^ell  as  school-teacher  to 
their  little  ones. 

How^  any  one  man  could  have  accomplished  all 
this,  strong  and  well  built  man  as  he  was,  seems 
incredible.  In  iSSi,  the  king  of  the  islands  author- 
ized Bishop  Koeckeman  to  visit  the  leper  island  and 
confer  on  Father  Damien  the  degree  of  Knight  Com- 
mander  of  the  Royal  House.  Of  this  decoration. 
Father  Damien  remarked  to  Charles  Warren  Stoddard, 
who  visited  him  by  permission  of  the  king:  "It  is 
not  for  this  I  am  here.""  The  queen  also  visited  the 
island  in  1S84  and  soon  after  inaugurated  a  fair  in 
Honolulu  for  the  lepeis'  benefit  A  subscription  of 
$1,500  was  raised  in  London  and  sent  by  Cardinal 
Manning;  and  $5,000  were  sient  b}^  Rev.  IL  B.  Chap- 
man, an  English  clergyman.  For  a  time  after  his 
arrival  on  the  island  he  was  treated  with  great  harsh- 
ness by  the  authorities;  permission  isras  refused  him 
to  leave  the  island  even  to  visit  a  brother  priest  on 
the  other  islands  for  the  purpose  of  going  to  confes- 
sion. The  sheriff  had  the  authority  to  arrest  him  and 
take  him  back  should  he  make  the  attempt.  On  one 
occasion,  Bishop  Maigret  passed  in  a  vessel  within 
sight  of  Molokai;  the  Bishop  beseeched  the  captain 


84 


Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 


to  land,  but  he  refused;  all  that  he  would  grant  was 
to  stop  a  few  moments  and  whistle.  The  signal  was 
heard;  a  canoe  put  off  from  the  shore  and  drew  along- 
side, but  the  ship's  orders  forbade  Father  Damien 
coming  aboard.  The  Bishop  leaned  over  the  vessel's 
side,  listening  to  the  confession  that  came  from  the 
occupant   of  the    canoe.      It  was  made  in  French, 


THE  CHURCH  AT  KAI^AWAO,  SHOWING  THE  TREE  UNDER  WHICH 
FATHER  DAMIEN  IS  BURIED. 


which  penitent  and  Bishop  alone  understood.  In 
later  days  a  formal  permit  was  occasionally  granted  to 
visit  another  island,  which  he  only  applied  for  when 
he  desired  to  go  to  confession.  With  the  aid  of  the 
lepers,  he  built  a  little  church,  painted  it  himself, 
and  the  necessary  altar  furniture,  chalice,  and  vest- 


Sandwich  Islands.  85 

ments  were  sent  to  him  by  friends  in  Paris.  After 
eleven  years  of  constant  mingling  with  the  lepers, 
.  during  which  time  he  had  buried  one  thousand  six 
hundred,  although  he  did  his  own  cooking  and 
washing,  the  first  appearance  of  leprosy  manifested 
itself  in  his  left  foot  and  on  the  lobes  of  his  ears. 
This  was  in  1884.  Following  the  usual  course,  it 
developed  slowh',  disfiguring  his  hands  and  face,  but 
he  was  cheerful  and  continued  his  usual  work. 

"  People  pity  me  and  think  me  unfortunate,"  he 
said,  "but  I  think  myself  the  happiest  of  missionar- 
ies."     His  poet  friend,  Stoddard,  has  said: 

MOLOKAI. 

"Almighty  God  knows  what  is  best  for  my  santification,  and  with  the  con- 
viction, I  say  daily,  Fiat  Vohoitas  iiia." — Father  Bamien. 

Laud  lio !     L,and,  like  an  emerald,  gleaming 

'Twixt  deep-blue  wave  aud  pale-blue  sky; 
A  lotus  isle  for  mid-day  dreaming, 

Seen  vague  as  our  ship  sails  by; 
A  land  that  knows  not  life's  commotion: 

Blest  "No  Man's  Land  !"  we  sadly  say; 
Has  it  a  name,  yon  gem  of  ocean  ? 

The  seaman  answers,  Molokai. 

Crowd  on  more  sail !     Though  clouds  were  looming 

Better  the  tempest's  roar  and  strife, 
Better  the  wild  waves'  shock  and  booming 

Than  that  dread  land  of  death  in  life — 
A  land  where  exiles  ne'er  cease  mourning, 

Where  rank  disease  doth  hold  foul  sway; 
A  land  from  which  there's  no  returning — 

The  lonely  isle  of  Molokai. 

Yet  one  long  look  ere  sight  be  weary — 

Earth's  holiest  spot,  in  angel  ken, 
Is  Avhere  one,  like  the  Son  of  Mary, 

Doth  give  his  life  for  siu-cursed  men; 


86 


Leprosy,  a7id  the  Chanty  of  the  Church. 


And  as  the  home  of  God-Hke  mortal, 

Who  in  such  death  can  calmly  sa}' 
"Th}-  will  be  done  !"     It  s^^ms  heaven's  portal — 

This  hallowed  isle  of  Molokai. 


In  December,  1888,  he  was  visited  by  Edward  Clif- 
ford, an  Englishman,  who  desired  to  tr}'  upon  him 
gurgon  (oil),  an  Indian  remedy  for  leprosy.  It  gave 
him  some  temporary  relief  only.      At  this  time  he  was 


SandivicJi  Ishifids.  87 

described  by  Clifford  as  "forty-nine  years  of  age,  a 
thick-set,  strongly-built  man,  and  with  black  curly 
hair.  His  countenance  must  have  been  a  handsome 
one,  with  a  well-curved  mouth,  straight  nose  and  fine 
head,  but  now  the  good  man  is  awfully  disfigured  with 
the  disease."  January  28,  1889,  he  wrote  to  a  friend 
this  simple  line:      "Good-bye,  till  heaven." 

Three  weeks  before  his  death  he  expressed  his  de- 
light that  he  should  celebrate  Kaster  in  Heaven.  On 
the  28th  of  March  he  was  completely  prostrated,  the 
concentration  of  the  disease  in  his  throat  and  lungs 
caused  extreme  suffering,  and  he  himself  recognized 
signs  of  the  end.  The  house  was  besieged  by  his 
leper  friends,  who  were  with  difficulty  kept  from  the 
little  room.  The  evening  before  his  death  he  took 
leave  of  all  and  blessed  them,  especially  the  children. 

He  died  about  8  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  April 
15,  1889,  the  Monday  after  Palm  Sunday.  The 
motive  of  his  life  may  be  summed  up  in  these  words, 
used  by  him  in  a  report  that  he  made  to  the  Govern- 
ment Board  of  Health  in  1886  :  "By  special  provi- 
dence of  our  Divine  Saviour,  who,  during  his  public 
life,  showed  a  particular  sympathy  for  the  lepers,  my 
way  was  traced  toward  Molokai,  1873."  Thus  lived 
and  died  Father  Damien,  after  a  life  of  sixteen  years 
among  the  lepers  of  Molokai.  The  Pacific  Ocean 
daily  sings  his  Requiem,  as  its  surges  roll  in  upon 
Molokai's  coral  reefs;  the  world,  when  he  died,  stopped 
for  a  moment  as  if  to  catch  its  breath,  and  then  broke 
forth  with  a  song  of  praise  that  echoed  round  the 
globe,  and  the  leper- priest,  the  humble  pastor  of 
Molokai's  stricken   ones,  became   the  subject   of  the 


88  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

world's  honor.  Humanity  was  dio^nified  in  knowing 
that  one  mortal  had  given  his  life  for  others,  Chris- 
tianity was  strengthened,  the  gospel  was  again  veri- 
fied— "  Greater  love  than  this  no  man  hath  that  he 
lay  down  his  life  for  another." 

Yet,  alas  I  There  was  one  discordant  note  in  this 
symphony  of  praise.  One  man  forgot  his  humanitv, 
forgot  his  calling,  forgot  the  spark  of  Christian  broth- 
erhood innate  in  e\-ery  being,  and  let  his  prejudice 
carry  him  away,  and  so  broke  forth  in  a  torrent  of 
abuse.  His  rancor  against  the  Church  that  Father 
Damien  loved  in  life  and  honored  in  death  so  twisted 
his  mental  vision  that,  forgetting  truth,  honestv,  and 
Christian  manhood,  he  called,  in  public  print,  ^lolo- 
kai's  hero  all  possible  vile  names — the  favorite  ones 
— "lecherous  dog,"  a  "vile  brute."  The  world 
blushed,  but  did  not  long  remain  silent.  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson,  who  now  sleeps  like  Father  Damien, 
within  the  bosom  of  one  of  the  South  Sea  Isles,  came 
to  the  rescue  of  his  memory  and  with  a  pen  of  heroic 
fire  branded  and  burned  the  lie  out  of  existence.  This 
mortal's  name  was  Hyde,  and  how  Stevenson  thrashed 
and  lacerated  his  cuticle  ! 

Shortly  after  Father  Damien's  death  a  memorial 
fund  was  started  in  England,  headed  by  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  to  erect  a  monument  at  his  grave  in  IMolokai, 
and  endow  a  ward  in  a  London  hospital  to  his 
memory. 

Quite  recently  the  old  Catholic  city  of  Louvain  by 
popular  subscription  erected  a  magnificent  group  in 
bronze  to  his  memory.  The  ceremonies  were  elabo- 
rate, the  officers  of  government  being  present;  also 


Sayidcvich  Islands.  89 

many  dignitaries  of  the  church,  prominent   among 
whom   was    Cardinal    Goosens,  of   Mechlin.     Father 


MONUMENT    TO    FATHER    DAMIEN    AT    KAI^AUPAPA. 

Built  by  subscription  headed  by  the  Prince  of  Wales,  and  placed  by  the 
Hawaiian  government  near  the  seashore,  where  it  can  be  seen  from  the  decks 
of  passing  vessels. 


Damien's  brother  was  celebrant  of  the  Mass  that  pre- 
ceded the  outdoor  ceremony.     The  bronze  group  rep- 


QO  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Chicrch. 

resents  Father  Damien  "erect,  his  look  heavenward, 
in  the  calm  attitude  of  his  deliberately  accepted  sac- 
rifice; with  one  hand  he  holds  the  crucifix  that  rests 
upon  his  breast,  with  the  other  he  presses  to  his  bosom 
an  adopted  brother,  a  leper,  resting  upon  a  stone  and 
sheltered  beneath  his  mantle." 

One  of  Father  Damien' s  customary  expressions — 
he  had  a  habit  of  talking  to  himself — was,  "Joseph, 
my  boy,  here's  work  for  your  life," — and  another 
found  in  his  letters  was,  "Induce  others  to  come  and 
join  us  here,  but  train  them  for  a  missionary  life." 
His  wishes  have  been  followed  out,  and  at  yErschot, 
near  his  native  place,  has  been  established  the 
"Father  Damien  Institute,"  with  about  eighty  stu- 
dents. A  branch  has  recently  been  opened  in  Eng- 
land, at  Hadznor,  which,  strange  to  say,  in  da3'S  past 
was  a  leper  settlement,  and  there  yet  can  be  seen  in 
the  walls  of  Hadznor  church  a  hole,  through  which 
the  lepers  could  see  to  assist  at  mass.  This  branch 
has,  however,  quite  recently  removed  to  Edgbaston, 
Birmineham,  and  from  this  house  is  issued  monthlv 
"The  Father  Damien  Institute  Magazine" — for  which 
Miss  E.  Harper,  585  Greene  avenue,  Brooklyn,  N.Y., 
is  the  American  agent. 

Such  is  the  story  of  Father  Damien' s  life,  simple 
in  detail,  humble  in  its  motive,  yet  heroic  in  its  re- 
sults, an  example  of  Christian  fortitude  perhaps  un- 
surpassed in  this  century. 

Rest  on  then,  Father  Damien!  Rest  on  to  await 
the  great  resurrection  morning!  Rest  on  in  thy  island 
home,  made  sacred  by  thy  life  and  hallowed  by  thy 
death !     Rest  on  where  the  waving  branches  of  thy 


Sandwich  Islands.  9 1 

pandanus  tree  are  as  muffled  music,  and  the  sighing 


the  leper  colony.      There  he  is  yet;  his  hands  helped 
dig  his  friend's  grave,  he  ministered  to  him  in  life 


92  Leprosy,  a7id  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

and  serves  him  yet  in  death.     Some  extracts  from  a 


few  of  the  letters  he  finds  time  to  write  may  prove  of 
interest,  though  I  feel  assured  he  would  deprecate  any 


Sandwich  Islands.  93 

notice  of  them.  In  one  of  his  early  letters,  in  1887, 
he  says:  "  The  principal  graveyard  back  of  my  cabin 
has  about  two  thousand  graves  and  nearly  one  thou- 
sand are  buried  elsewhere.  In  addition  to  outside 
work,  I  look  after  the  church  as  sacristan,  serve  Mass, 
and  attend  to  the  medicines  with  Father  Damien.  I 
am  now  painting  the  church  and  building  a  fence 
around  it.  Take  it  all  in  all,  this  is  a  fine  locality 
for  meditation,  surrounded  by  the  best  symbol  of 
eternity,  the  boundless  ocean."  A  later  letter  says: 
"Many  of  the  lepers  are  very  low  now.  Ten  funerals 
last  week,  three  to-day,  and  two  are  now  being  pre- 
pared for  death.  Yet  the  number  increases  from  day 
to  day,  every  vessel  from  the  other  islands  bringing  us 
patients."  Again — "I  do  not  often  have  time  now 
to  write  letters — increase  of  duties,  particularly  the 
addition  to  what  has  become  my  regular  occupation, 
that  of  dressing  the  ulcers,  leaves  me  little  time.  The 
spare  moments  are  usually  occupied  in  looking  after 
things  about  the  church,  as  Father  Damien  grows 
weaker  every  day,  and  about  fifty  orphan  boys  to  look 
after.  My  cabin  is  ten  by  fourteen  feet,  painted  inside 
and  whitewashed  outside,  and  connects  with  the  pas- 
sageway to  the  church.  So  I  live  near  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment; without  this  and  hearing  Mass  daily  I  would  be 
lost.  I  have  painted  the  church  pretty  thoroughly  inside 
and  built  a  neat  fence  about  it,  and  planted  a  few 
trees,  shrubs,  and  flowers,  but  I  do  not  get  much  time 
to  look  after  them,  but  am  trying  to  interest  the  leper 
boys  in  the  care  of  the  yard.  My  special  work  is 
dressing  the  sores,  and  I  am  learning  to  be  interested 
in  it.     The  Government  has  at  last  allowed  us  suf- 


94  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

ficieiit  supplies  for  this  purpose,  and  now  I  can  dress 
about  one  hundred  sores  a  day.  But  it  is  now  lo 
o'clock,  and  having  to  be  up  at  4  o'clock  to  make  my 
meditation,  ring  the  Angelus  at  5  o'clock,  waken  the 


MAJOR    JOSEPH    BUTTON. 


boys  and  get  them  ready  for  Mass  at  6  o'clock,  must 
close,  as  I  have  had  a  busy  day — have  dressed  nearly 
two  hundred  sores,  some  of  the  lepers  waiting  their 
turn  in  the  line  for  four  or  five  hours." 

In  this  same  letter  he  mentioned  one  patient  as 
having,  when  he  first  took  charge  of  him,  forty-six  run- 
ning sores  or  ulcers,  but  by  using  the  carbolic  acid 
baths,  he  has  reduced  the  number  to  twenty-two.  He 
writes  as  one  not  broken  down  by  the  awful  scenes  he 


Sand-iVich  Islands.  95 

daily  witnesses.  Father  Damien  and  himself  enjoy 
their  little  joke  now  and  then.  One  day  it  was  sug- 
gested that  a  certain  boy  had  his  catechism  at  his 
finger-ends,  when  Father  Damien  responded,  "  Oh, 
no  !  the  poor  little  fellow  has  no  finger  ends/' 

Another  time,  two  lepers  ran  a  foot-race,  not  very 
fast,  but  over  the  prescribed  course;  one  of  the  toes  of 
one  of  the  boys  dropped  off"  during  the  sport,  and 
Father  Damien  said:  "  I  guess  he  lost  the  foot-race, 
as  he  did  not  toe  the  mark. " 

There  is  a  thread  of  the  simple  and  yet  heroic  in 
almost  every  line.  In  a  later  letter  I\Ir.  Dutton  says: 
"  By  the  last  mail  I  had  an  invitation  to  the  re-union 
of  my  old  army  regiment,  to  be  held  at  my  old  home 
in  the  States,  I  replied  '  that  I  had  entered  another 
army  since,  enlisting  for  life,  or  rather  death.'  " 

Writing  of  leprosy  he  says:  "In  the  two  principal 
divisions,  tubercular  and  anaesthetic,  there  are  many 
grades,  and  though  some  general  rules,  of  course,  may 
be  laid  down  differing  according  to  the  form,  yet  each 
case  has  its  own  peculiarities.  In  one  form  longer 
life  is  generally  looked  for,  with  little  pain  after  the 
first  few  years,  an  almost  entire  insensibility  during 
the  last  years,  hooking  of  the  fingers,  twisting  of  the 
eyes  and  of  the  mouth,  dropping  off"  of  the  joints  of 
the  fingers  and  toes.  In  other  forms  more  ulcers  and 
lumps  and  knobs,  a  general  rotting  of  the  body, 
blindness  and  so  on.  Some  of  the  most  learned  of 
the  medical  faculty  have  made  for  years  a  special 
study  of  leprosy.  Every  mail  brings  us  written  and 
printed  matter,  much  more  than  we  have  time  to 
read,  giving  accounts  of  steps  taken,  progress  made, 


96  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

and  reports  of  investigations  made  by  command  of 
different  governments  thronghout  the  world.  I  have 
not  the  time  or  talent  to  go  into  them.  The  rest  of 
my  days  must  be  spent  in  trying  to  help  the  leper, 
clean  the  sores,  trim,  dress,  bandage,  patch  and  keep 
them  alive  as  long  as  may  be. 

"  This  Government  has  expended  thousands  of 
dollars  in  experiments:  the  Japanese  plan — then  this, 
then  that;  but  nothing  yet  has  been  found  to  be  a 
real  remedy.  Dr.  Baker,  of  New  Zealand,  has  put 
his  plan  forward — a  result  of  inquiry  made  by  com- 
mand of  Queen  Victoria.  No  doubt  some  good  will 
eventually  come  out  of  all  this.  But  for  the  present 
our  work  must  be  to  try  to  help  the  lepers  to  die  well 
and  peacefully.  They  do  not  wish  to  be  tortured 
with  every  new  remedy.  The  people  are  generally 
contented  with  what  we  do  for  them;  the  boys 
especially — a  crowd  of  them  are  now  under  my  win- 
dow, near  the  edge  of  the  graveyard,  playing  ball 
and  yelling  like  good  fellows.  The  poor  little  fellows 
seem  to  have  a  real  affection  for  us.  Some  of  them 
are  not  able  to  run  about  very  much  and  many  of 
them  can  drop  down  anywhere  on  the  grass  and  go  to 
sleep  at  once,  they  are  so  weak.  Four  of  them  are 
blind;  one  of  the  blind  has  learned  to  walk  about  in 
safety,  and  so  leads  the  other  three.  ]\Iany  of  the 
boys  sing  well  and  give  us  all  the  church  music  that 
we  have.  Speaking  of  ball-pla}-ing,  the  small  boys, 
and  some  of  the  larger  ones  too,  any  who  are  yet  spry, 
have  a  great  way  with  their  games.  For  about  a 
week  they  will  play  at  nothing  but  ball — then  w^hat- 
ever  any  of  them  introduces  next,  say  stilts,  will  be 


Sandwich  Islands. 


97 


all  the  go  for  the  next  week;  then  a  week  of  kites, 
then  of  arrows,  then  of  marbles,  and  so  on,  like  boys 
the  world  over.  Father  Damien  is  suffering  very 
much  now,  though  he  is  out  and  about  every  day. 
He  says  Mass  every  day,  has  missed  only  two  morn- 
insfs  since  I  came  here  and  these  on  account  of  his 


FATHER    WENDELIX'S     CHURCH    AT    KAI.AUPAPA. 


eyes — they  are  growing  very  weak — in  fact,  he  has 
but  one  now  and  that  is  much  inflamed.  One  of  his 
ears  is  swollen  to  an  enormous  size  and  covered  with 
lumps  of  many  colors;  on  his  forehead  ridges  and 
lumps,  also  on  the  face,  hands  and  arms,  and  yet  he  is 
very  active  and  cheerful,  one  of  the  most  powerful 
men  physically  to  be  found,     But  I  must  now  close. 


g8  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

this  letter,  as  it  is  time  to  ring  the  bell  and  fix  things 
for  five  or  six  baptisms  which  the  Father  has  in  the 
church.  Very  few  seriously  sick  now — a  calm  after 
the  spell — losing  about  seventy-five  last  week." 

The  next  letter,  written  in  1889,  tells  of  the  death 
of  Father  Damien.  "  Father  Damien's  death  has 
thrown  upon  me  much  additional  duty.  Those  of  a 
temporal  character,  that  he  performed  so  well,  have 
almost  entirely  fallen  to  me.  Father  Wendelin  lives 
at  Kalaupapa,  the  other  leper  village,  and  comes  here 
occasionally.  Father  Conrardy  lives  here  now,  and 
attends  to  all  spiritual  matters. 

FATHER  DAMIEX'S  DEATH. 

"^Mother  Marianne,  the  Franciscan  Sister  from  Syra- 
cuse, Xew  York,  is  in  charge  of  the  Girls'  Home  at 
Kalaupapa.  She  has  four  other  sisters  with  her. 
She  came  a  few  months  ago  and  is  a  great  aid  in  the 
Avork.  Father  Damien's  grave  is  just  beside  the  rock 
part  of  the  church,  and  almost  under  his  old  panda- 
nus  tree.  We  have  a  little  flower  garden  around  it, 
and  the  grave  itself  is  a  mound  of  earth  with  numer- 
ous plants  growing  over  it.  This  letter  is  a  patch- 
work done  at  all  sorts  of  odd  times.  In  fact,  what  I 
should  have  written  before  is  of  his  death,  for  I  am  sure 
that  subject  is  of  the  most  interest  to  you.  Yet  I 
don't  know  that  there  is  very  much  to  say.  He  lay 
for  the  last  three  weeks  of  his  life  unable  to  say  ]\Iass, 
much  of  the  time  quite  helpless,  and  died  April  15, 
at  8  o'clock,  the  ^Monday  after  Palm  Sunday.  For 
about  a  week  I  had  encouraged  him  to  expect  a  relief 
on  Palm  Sunday,  and  at  11  o'clock  that  night  he  was 


Sandwich  Islands.  99 

nearly  gone  (as  if  he  was  trying  to  make  my  word 
good),  but  rallied  and  held  out  until  the  following 
morning.  He  was  patient  and  resigned.  Several 
times,  when  we  were  alone,  he  asked  me  what  day  he 
would  die  (I  always  said  Palm  Sunday),  and  wanted 
me  to  move  into  his  room  and  occupy  it  as  soon  as  he 
was  gone.  In  the  last  period  of  three  weeks  the  dis- 
ease, thus  far  very  pronounced  in  outward  manifesta- 
tion, alm.ost  left  the  surface,  retreating,  or,  I  might 
say,  advancing  to  the  interior  for  the  last  attack,  and 
ravaged  in  a  fearful  manner  the  throat,  lungs  and 
stomach.     May  he  rest  in  peace! 

"  The  day  before  his  death,  I  raised  him  up  in  bed 
for  the  government  physician  to  get  a  photograph.  It 
is  the  most  striking  picture  I  have  seen  of  him.  The 
doctor  has  made  some  copies,  and  I  send  you  one. 
Applications  to  become  inmates  increase,  so  I  am 
making  estimates  for  the  enlargement  of  the  estab- 
lishment to  get  more  dormitory  space.  Three  years 
ago  to-day  I  landed  here.  July  26,  1886 — ^July  26, 
1889." 

A  letter  written  in  1891  says:  "The  priests  are 
now  restricted  to  ordinary  parish  work,  so  that,  while 
formerly  all  my  work  was  under  the  direction  of  the 
priest,  now  it  is  not;  that  is,  the  daily  routine  is  com- 
posed of  duties  under  the  Government  Board  of 
Health.  Certainly  I  do  a  great  many  things  for  the 
mission  outside  of  these  regular  duties,  keeping  some 
of  the  accounts,  looking  after  the  church  property, 
etc.     Am  counted  as  a  regular  '  settler' — a  'Kokua. '  " 

A  letter  written  quite  recently  tells  us  of  the  many 
improvements  that  are  nearly  finished;  construction 


lOO  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

of  a  new  house  for  the  orphan  boys,  and  for  helpless 
cases  of  all  sorts,  male;  about  twenty  buildings;  over 
four  thousand  feet  of  walls  and  fencing;  grading 
grounds,  constructing  sewers,  etc.  Now  that  the 
place  is  complete  (about  $10,000  cost),  new  responsi- 
bilities are  threatening.  iVll  this  constitutes  extra 
work,  as  I  still  keep  up  my  care  of  the  sick,  the 
dressing  of  sores,  etc.,  as  I  have  for  the  past  nine 
years  nearly;  hence  have  had  little  time  for  writing. 
The  Board  of  Health  want  me  to  take  charge,  entire 
control,  with  brothers  from  Belgium  to  assist.  The 
Bishop  has  consented."  Thus,  now  and  then,  writes 
this  brave  soldier  of  the  cross,  full  of  hope  and  ambi- 
tion to  do  for  the  helpless  of  ^lolokai.  "  Greater  love 
than  this  no  man  hath,  that  he  lay  down  his  life  for 
another," 

The  following  press  dispatch  appeared  in  the  papers 
of  May  13.  1895: 

Sax  Fraxcisco,  ]\Iay  13. — Bishop  Gulstan  Ropert 
arrived  in  this  city  from  Honolulu,  en  route  to  Rome, 
where  he  is  going  to  induce  the  Pope  to  send  more 
missionaries  to  the  Hawaiian  Islands  to  care  for  the 
lepers.  He  will  also  visit  France  on  the  same  mission. 
With  one  thousand  two  hundred  lepers  on  the  island, 
he  says,  the  sight  is  too  sickening  to  discuss.  The 
Bishop  will  visit  the  Brothers  of  ]\Iary  at  Dayton,  O. 

The  writer,  through  the  courtesy  of  the  fathers  at 
St.  Clary's  Institute,  Dayton,  O.,  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  Bishop  Ropert  the  following  Sunday  eve- 
ning. He  is  a  charming  character,  simple  as  a  child, 
with  all  the  marked  suavity  of  the  French  race.  He 
speaks  English  with  a  Breton  accent,  and  when  he 


Sandwich  Islands.  lOl 

grows  interested  is  a  most  entertaining  talker,  espe- 
cially when  conversing  about  his  "dear  islands  in  the 
Pacific."  He  is  small  of  stature,  iron-gray  hair, 
pleasing  face,  and  evidently  a  hard  worker.  He  is 
fifty-five  years  of  age,  and  has  been  on  the  islands  for 
twenty-eight  years. 

He  was  nine  months  reaching  the  scene  of  his 
labors  when  he  made  the  voyage  from  France  in  1867. 
Before  his  consecration  he  was  pastor  at  Wailuku, 
and  established  a  parochial  school  for  boys  under  the 
care  of  the  Brothers  of  IMary,  from  Dayton,  O.,  and 
also  one  for  girls  under  charge  of  the  Franciscan  Sis- 
ters, from  Syracuse,  N.  Y.  While  pastor  there,  in 
the  words  of  one  of  the  brothers,  "he  never  tired." 
When  the  Bishop  was  shown  the  press  dispatch  from 
San  Francisco  concerning  the  object  of  his  visit  to 
Europe,  he  enjoyed  a  hearty  laugh  when  he  reached 
the  words  that  ' '  he  was  going  to  Rome  to  induce  the 
Pope"  to  do  certain  things.  He  is  simply  going  to 
make  his  visit  to  the  Holy  Father — what  is  known 
as  ad  limina. 

While  in  Europe  he  will  endeavor,  and  he  thinks 
successfully,  to  procure  the  services  of  some  brothers 
to  take  charge  of  the  Leper  Home  for  the  boys  and 
men  on  the  island  of  Molokai,  thus  enabling  the 
Franciscan  Sisters  already  there  to  devote  their  entire 
time  to  the  lycper  Home  for  girls  and  women  on  the 
same  island.  The  Government  has  requested  this  of 
the  Bishop,  and  as  of  late  years  the  work  has  grown, 
he  is  only  too  glad  to  comply.  He  says  that  the  num- 
ber of  lepers  is  now  one  thousand  two  hundred — one 
hundred  in  the  Boys'  Home,  one  hundred  in  the  Girl's 


I02 


Leprosy,  and  the  Charily  of  the  Chtirch. 


Home,  and  the  remaining  one  thousand  scattered 
about  in  the  various  houses  in  '  'The  Leper  Settlement' ' 
of  INIolokai.  The  boys'  home  is  called  Kalawao; 
the  girls'  home  Kalaupapa.  The  Board  of  Health  of 
the  islands  has  expended  lately  almost  $10,000  at 
Kalawao,  putting  up  new  buildings  and  adding  to  old 
ones.      Mr.  Joseph  Button,  an  American,  and   a  con- 


INTERIOR   OF  THE   CHURCH   AT   KAI^AUPAPA. 


vert,  who  has  been  there  for  nine  years,  has  had 
charge  of  the  work.  Since  Father  Damien's  death, 
the  care  of  financial  and  material  affairs  has  been  in 
his  hands.  The  Board  of  Health  wish  at  least  four 
brothers  of  the  same  order  that  Father  Damien 
belonged  to,  and  have  promised  to  pay  their  passage 
from  Belgium  to  the  islands.  The  new  home  for  men 
and  boys  is  to  be  a  very  complete  affair  in  every  way, 
and  shows  that  Father  Damien's  efforts  to  interest  the 


Sandwich  Islands.  103 

Government  in  treating  the  lepers  humanely  and  in 


^^v^^^  w^^  ^.x  j.u±/,  aiiu  111  1025  rope  ivco  Xil.  sent 
some  of  its  members  to  preach  the  Gospel  in  the 
islands  of  the  Pacific,  and  there  they  have  labored  for 


104  Leprosy^  and  the  Charity  of  the  Ch2irch. 

the  past  seventy  years.      How  appropriate  that  they 


should  have  the  care  of  lepers,  the  most  malignant  of 
skin  diseases,  and  tlnis  again  in  this    centurv    fulfill 


Sandwich  Islands.  105 

the  meaning  of  the  name  "Pic-pus"  At  present 
there  are  on  the  islands  thirty-five  Catholic  churches, 
fifty-nine  chapels,  one  college  with  five  hundred  and 
six  pupils,  three  academies  and  ten  parochial  schools, 
with  one  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty  pupils.  Last 
year  there  were  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  infant  baptisms  and  one  hundred  and  sixty-eight 
adult  baptisms ;  one  hundred  and  forty-four  marriages 
and  six  hundred  and  ninety-six  burials. 

The  Catholic  population  is  about  thirty-one  thou- 
sand, out  of  an  entire  population  of  ninety  thousand. 
Ninety  per  cent  of  the  native  population  can  read  and 
write,  and  most  of  this  remarkable  work  is  due  to  the 
energy  and  zeal  of  Catholic  priests,  brothers  and  sis- 
ters. The  Brothers  of  Mary  have  over  five  hundred 
pupils  in  their  College  of  St.  Louis,  at  Honolulu;  the 
Sisters  of  the  Sacred  Heart  have  over  three  hundred 
and  fifty  at  their  boarding  and  day  school  in  the  same 
city.  The  Franciscan  Sisters  from  Syracuse,  New 
York,  have  a  school  at  Wailuku,  and  also  have  charge 
of  the  Government  hospital  at  the  same  place.  This 
hospital  does  not  receive  lepers.  They  also  have  an 
orphan  home  called  "  Kapiolani  Home''  at  Honolulu, 
and  a  receiving  station  for  lepers,  or  those  suspected 
to  be,  at  Kalihi. 

Besides  these  institutions,  the  Franciscan  Sisters 
also  are  at  the  Leper  Settlements  at  Kalawao  and 
Kalaupapa  on  the  island  of  Molokai.  This  was  the 
scene  of  Father  Damien's  labors  and  death — here  are 
the  victims  of  that  awful  scourge,  the  leprosy. 

BISHOP  ROPERT  RETURNS  HOME. 

Since    the    above   was    written,    information    has 


lo6  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Onirch. 

readied  us  that  Bishop  Ropert  was  successful  in  his 
European  trip.  Father  Damien's  brother,  Father 
Pamphile,  has  also  gone  to  Molokai  to  take  up  the 
work  which  his  heroic  brother  laid   down  with  his 


THE   REV.  EATHER   PAMPHII^E,    vSS.CC. 

life  seven  and  a  half  years  ago,  a  work  which  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  called  "among  the  stumps  and  butts 
of  humanity. "  Twice  before  Father  Pamphile  had 
arranged  to  go  to  Molokai,  but  each  time  severe  ill- 
ness prevented.     He  is  by  no  means  a  young  man, 


Sandwich  Islands. 


107 


thousfh  he  enters  on  his  mission  with  all  the  ardor 
of  youth.  He  is  now  58  years  old,  and  for  years  had 
been  a  professor  at  the  University  of  Louvain,  Bel- 
gium.     At  present  there  are  two  priests  and  a  num- 


FATHER  CONRARDY 


ber  of  brothers  and  sisters  engaged  in  carrying  on  the 
great  work  commenced  by  Father  Damien.  Father 
Conrard}',  who  spent  some  years  at  this  leper  settle- 
ment, is  at  present  in  China,  and  the  following  letter 
sent  to  one  of  the  Jesuit  Fathers  of  Detroit  and  pub- 
lished in  their  Parish  Bulletin  tells  of  his  work: 


io8  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

Mission  Catholique, 

Shanghai,  China,  July  7,  1896. 
Dear  Rev.  Father  in  Christ: 

Rev.  Father  Conrardi,  the  worthy  successor  of 
Father  Damien  at  the  leper  station  of  Molokai,  is 
acquainted  at  Detroit,  where  I  think  he  spent  some 
time,  or  at  least  paid  a  visit,  before  his  heroic  visit  to 
the  lepers.  I  remember  having  been  shown  by  a 
friend  of  his  in  Detroit  a  letter  written  by  him  from 
his  mission  at  Molokai.  He  has  now,  it  seems, 
undertaken  the  direction  of  leper  missions  all  over 
the  world.  I  don't  know  whether  he  received  the 
charge  from  Rome,  or  was  prompted  to  undertake  it 
by  his  own  zeal  and  devotion. 

He  visited  Macao  in  May  in  order  to  inspect  the 
leper  stations  of  that  colony.  He  found  room  for 
improvement  in  certain  particulars,  and  after  repre- 
senting the  matter  to  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and 
leaving  instructions  for  proposed  reforms,  he  promised 
to  return  in  two  years.  I  hope  to  be  back  at  Macao 
before  that  time,  and  I  may  have  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  him. 

There  are  two  leper  stations  at  Macao,  one  for  men 
and  one  for  women,  on  two  separate  islands,  not  far 
from  the  city.  Each  station  may  have  fifteen  or 
sixteen  lepers.  The  stations  were  established  by  the 
Portuguese  government,  which  cares  for  their  material 
wants  and  does  not  entirely  neglect  their  spiritual 
welfare.  A  steam  launch  of  the  government  is  always 
at  the  disposal  of  the  clergy  and  of  the  good  sisters, 
when  they  desire  to  visit  the  unfortunate  little 
colonies. 


Sand-ivich  Islands.  109 

The  lepers  of  Macao  have  no  priest  living  with 
them,  for  they  are  not  so  strictly  secluded  from  com- 
munication with  the  rest  of  the  world  as  are  the 
lepers  of  Molokai.  The  reason  for  the  difference  is 
that  the  Chinese  have  no  unreasonable  fear  of  the 
dread  disease,  whereas,  in  the  Sandwich  Islands,  I 
was  told  at  Honolulu,  a  single  fresh  case  in  the  city 
is  almost  enough  to  cause  a  panic.  At  Macao  the 
priest  may  pass  freely  between  the  city  and  the  leper 
islands,  without  exciting  any  fear  and  with  no  pre- 
judicial consequences. 

Formerly  the  leper  women  were  kept  in  an  apart- 
ment adjoining  the  Chinese  Church,  separated  by 
only  a  glass  casement,  through  which  they  could 
hear  mass.  A  few  old  women,  indeed,  are  still  left 
there,  but  no  fresh  cases  are  to  be  placed  there  for 
the  future. 

I  have  never  visited  the  leper  stations  of  IMacao, 
and  I  don't  know  what  improvements  Father  Conrardi 
may  have  suggested.  But  for  a  person  of  his  experi- 
ence, it  cannot  be  difficult  to  suggest  reform  for  the 
spiritual  and  temporal  well-being  of  the  poor  creatures 
to  whom  he  has  so  nobly  devoted  his  life. 

Your  reverence's  devotedly  in  Christ, 

William  Hornsby,  S.  J. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    TRINIDAD    I.EPER    COLONY. 

Molokai  is  not  the  only  leprosy-stricken  place 
where  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  Church  are  wear- 
ing out  their  lives  in  this  sublime  charity  of  taking 
care  of  lepers,  and  this  work  would  be  incomplete 
without  a  passing  reference  to  another  place  in  a  dif- 
ferent part  of  the  world — the  leper  colony  of  Cocorite 
on  the  island  of  Trinidad,  one  of  the  British  West 
Indies,  off  the  northeast  coast  of  Venezuela  and  oppo- 
site the  mouth  of  the  Orinoco  River  of  South  Amer- 
ica. This  island  was  discovered  by  Columbus  in 
1498,  occupied  by  the  Spanish  in  the  i6th  century, 
captured  by  the  French  in  1676,  bat  soon  restored 
and  taken  by  the  British  in  1797.  Before  1869,  the 
care  of  the  lepers  on  this  island  was  confided  to  negro 
nurses  of  both  sexes.  This  island  is  called  ' '  The 
Paradise  of  the  Antilles"  on  account  of  its  delight- 
ful climate  and  picturesque  scenery.  Their  cases 
were  most  deplorable,  their  sores  were  so  neglected 
that  deaths  were  numerous,  and  the  government  doc- 
tor, after  making  his  first  visit,  declined  to  enter  the 
lazaretto  a  second  time,  saying  that  it  could  be  com- 
pared to  hell,  and  above  its  doors  should  be  written, 
"  Leave  hope  behind,  all  ye  who  enter  here."  This 
remark  having  come  to  the  ears  of  the  governor  of 
the  island — a  'Protestant  gentleman — he  thought  of 


The   Trinidad  Leper  Colojiy.  iii 

appealing  to  the  charity  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and 
hence  called  upon  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  the  Port  of 
Spain,  Trinidad,  who,  with  five  Dominican  friars, 
was  preaching  the  Gospel  in  this  far-off  land.  The 
English  Governor  explained  matters  to  the  Bishop, 
who  promised  to  write  to  France  and  obtain  the  ser- 
vices of  some  Dominican  Sisters.  He  succeeded,  and 
six  sisters  landed  on  the  island  in  1868.  The  Sister 
Superior  had  been,  when  a  child,  under  the  direction 
of  the  Venerable  Cure  D'Ars,  and  always  said  she 
felt  she  v/ould  die  a  martyr's  death.  She  fell  a 
victim  to  yellow  fever  six  months  after  her  arrival 
on  the  island.  The  band  of  sisters  heard  their  first 
Mass  in  the  Rosary  Chapel  at  Port  of  Spain,  and 
two  days  after  their  arrival  began  their  work.  They 
found  the  hospital  in  a  frightful  condition.  They 
began  the  work  of  washing  the  lepers'  sores  at  3 
o'clock  on  the  afternoon  of  Good  Friday.  The  day 
and  hour  could  not  have  been  more  appropriate,  and 
just  as  they  had  finished  the  work  the  physician  was 
announced.  He  had  never  seen  a  Catholic  sister, 
and  was  anxious  to  interview  these  "ladies  from 
Paris,"  as  he  called  them. 

He  was  amazed  that  they  intended  to  stay,  and 
said  that  the  place  w^as  a  perfect  hell.  "Well!" 
said  the  old  sister,  "  we  intend  to  stay,  in  hopes  that 
by  remaining  at  the  gates  of  hell  with  these  poor 
creatures,  we  may  save  some  of  them  for  heaven."  I 
am  indebted  for  these  facts  to  the  "Rosary  Maga- 
zine," in  whose  columns  some  time  since  appeared  an 
extended  account  of  this  lazaretto,  by  an  American 
Catholic    lady,    who  visited    the   island.      She   says 


112  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the   Church. 

that  the  doctor,  now  an  old  man,  told  her  that  when 
listening  to  those  heroic  words  he  could  hardly 
refrain  from  falling  on  his  knees  and  worshiping 
these  women.  The  sisters  received  a  message  from 
the  Governor  that  they  were  not  to  mention  religion 
to  any  of  the  non-Catholic  patients.  The  writer  tells 
the  following  touching  incident  :  One  young  man 
about  eighteen  years  old  made  his  profession  of  faith 
before  all  the  authorities  with  charming  frankness 
and  simplicity.  The  sisters  told  him  that  before 
becoming  a  Catholic  it  was  necessary  to  have  the 
Governor's  permission.  With  admirable  patience, 
he  waited  until  the  Governor  paid  his  quarterly  visit, 
when,  requesting  an  interview,  he  fearlessly  entered 
the  room.  "Governor,''  he  said,  "  I  want  to  be  a 
Catholic.  I  have  but  a  short  time  to  live.  I  see  peo- 
ple die  here  every  da}',  and  I  want  to  die  like  the 
Catholics."  Two  non-Catholic  clergymen  and 
former  prominent  citizens  of  Trinidad  were  present, 
as  well  as  two  of  the  sisters.  One  of  the  gentlemen 
present  stepped  forward  and  asked  :  ' '  Who  told  you 
to  make  this  speech  ?  One  of  these  ladies,  I 
presume,''  pointing  to  the  sisters.  "No,"  he  said, 
"  these  good  women  take  care  of  what  is  left  of  my 
poor  body.  They  have  never  asked  me  to  enter  their 
chapel ;  it  is  my  conscience,  my  heart,"  placing  the 
palm  of  his  hand  on  his  bosom.  The  fingers  of  both 
hands  had  been  eaten  away  by  the  disease  and  he  had 
to  be  fed  b\- the  sisters  like  a  babe.  "I\Iy  heart," 
said  he,  "  keeps  telling  me  to  ask  leave  to  die  in  the 
same  religion  as  these  holy  Vv-omen.  Do,  Governor, 
grant  my  last  wish."      ''You  are  free  to  follow  your 


The   Trinidad  Leper  Colony.  113 

own  inclination,"  answered  the  Governor.  "Oh! 
thanks,  good  sir,  I  will  pray  for  you  here  and  when  I 
go  to  heaven."  Thus  goes  on  the  great  work.  Some 
sisters  are  carried  away  by  yellow  fever,  some  by  lep- 
rosy, but  the  work  lives  on  and  all  classes  of  people 
on  the  island  praise  and  admire  it. 

These  words  concerning  this  work  were  written  by 
an  English  Protestant  editor:  "  If  the  19th  century 
has  its  honors,  it  also  furnishes  many  examples  which 
v/ould  have  made  the  Apostles  weep  with  joy.  How 
divine  is  this  religion,  which  preserves  such  vigor 
through  a  period  of  nearly  two  thousand  years.  The 
world  asks  how  these  frail  women  can  summon  the 
courage  to  live  and  die  among  such  awful  scenes. 
This  is  a  mystery  to  the  world,  but  to  them  the  solu- 
tion is  very  simple.  Under  the  exterior  of  those 
leprosy-stricken  bodies,  they  see  souls  and  they  know 
that  Jesus  Christ  loves  the  lepers."  The  reports  of 
the  medical  superintendent  of  the  leper  asylum  at 
Cocorite  are  painful  reading  at  all  times.  We  doubt, 
however,  says  the  "Catholic  News,"  of  Port  of  Spain, 
whether  anything  is  more  calculated  to  stir  painful 
surprise  than  the  passage  in  last  year's  report  on  the 
subject  of  the  accommodation  of  the  sisters  in  charge 
of  the  leper  asylum.  It  amounts  to  nothing  less  than 
a  charge  of  inhumanity  against  the  government  in  the 
matter  of  their  treatment  of  the  heroic  sisters  who 
play  the  part  of  ministering  angels  to  the  leper  out- 
casts of  the  colony.  Following  is  the  passage  referred 
to: 

"Several  members  of  the  Legislative  Council  visited 
the  asylum  in  the  course  of  the  year  to  investigate  the 


114  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

question  of  urgently  needed  increased  accommodation 
for  the  sisters  of  the  new  chapel.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  as  6,000  pounds  has  been  voted  out  of  the  con- 
templated loan  for  additions,  alterations,  and  repairs 
at  the  asylum,  the  work  will  soon  be  put  in  hand. 
The  overcrowding  in  the  sisters'  quarters  is  most 
serious.  Some  of  their  bedrooms  are  situated  above 
the  storeroom,  and  as  this  room  has  to  be  used  for 
keeping  the  recently  reaped  vegetables,  as  well  as 
the  ordinary  stores,  the  mixed  effluvia  rising  from  the 
fermenting  mass  and  penetrating  through  the  chinks 
in  the  floors  of  the  rooms  above,  can  be  better  imagined 
than  described. 

"Other  bedrooms  are  over  the  chapel,  and  an  odor 
which  even  incense  is  powerless  to  subdue  ascends 
during  a  crowded  service.  The  health  of  the  sisters 
is  thus  seriously  endangered,  and  the  necessity  for  an 
infirmary  in  cases  of  illness  among  them  is  more  and 
more  felt  as  their  numbers  increase.  The  proposed 
erection  of  two  new  wards  will  entail  the  addition  of 
two  more  nurses  to  the  staff.  The  asylum  badly 
wants  painting  throughout.  No  painting,  except  to 
the  new  buildings,  has  been  done  for  ten  years  to  my 
certain  knowledge,  and  probably  for  a  much  longer 
time.  It  would  be  economy  to  paint  the  buildings, 
especially  the  older  parts,  which  are  beginning  to 
decay,  and  neatness  and  cleanliness  would  be  greatly 
promoted. ' ' 

The  following  well-deserved  tribute  is  also  paid  by 
the  government  doctors  to  the  sisters: 

"  It  is  impossible  to  describe  in  words  the  devotion 
of  the  sisters,   to  whom  falls  all  the  more  arduous 


The  Trinidad  Leper  Colony.  115 

work.  Next  month  (April,  1893,)  they  celebrate  their 
twenty-fifth  anniversary  in  Trinidad.  Of  the  original 
band  of  sisters  only  one  survives — the  dispenser — Sis- 
ter Mary  Augustine.  During  a  period  of  twenty -five 
years,  she  has  only  spent  eight  days  outside  the  convent 
wall — a  record  probably  never  approached  in  the  his- 
tory of  leprosy.  That  she  may  long  continue  to  adorn 
the  post  she  so  worthily  fills  must  be  the  wish  of  all 
who  have  the  privilege  of  her  acquaintance.  When 
we  remember  the  chaos  which  reigned  at  the  leper 
asylum  twenty-five  years  ago,  we  may  well  say  of  her, 
as  of  all  the  sisters  of  Cocorite,  '  Si  quaeris  momi- 
mentum^  circmnspice ' — '  if  you  seek  their  monument, 
look  around.'  " 


CHAPTER  IV. 

IN  CANADA  AND  ICELAND. THE    LAZARETTO  IN  NEW 

BRUNSWICK. 

The  Sisters  of  St.  Joseph,  from  Montreal,  have 
charge  of  the  Government  Hospital  for  lepers  at 
Tracadie,  Gloucester  County,  New  Brunswick.  The 
following  was  kindly  sent  in  answer  to  a  request  for 
information: 

Lazaretto, 
Hotel  Dieu  of  St.  Joseph, 

Tracadie,  N.  B. 
Rev.  Iv.  W.  Mulhane, 

Mt.  Vernon,  Ohio,  U.  S.  A.,  May  31,  1896. 

Rev'nd  Monsieur: — In  reply  to  your  letter  of  the 
24th  inst. ,  I  have  the  honor  to  say  that  we  have  only 
twenty  lepers  now — thirteen  men  and  seven  women. 
This  lazaretto  was  established  in  1844,  and  was  con- 
fided to  our  care  in  1868.  Our  lazaretto  is  the  only 
one  in  Canada. 

Soliciting  the  favor  of  your  prayers,    I  have   the 
honor  to  be,  with  profound  respect, 
Rev'nd  Monsieur, 

Your  humble  servant. 
Sister  St.  Jean  de  Goto, 

Superioress. 

IN    ICELAND. 

Father  Sveinsson,  the  Jesuit  missionary,  writes  that 

leprosy  is  increasing  in  an  alarming   manner.       In 

1894,  Copenhagen  was  horror-struck  on  hearing  that 

116 


In  Canada  and  Iceland.  117 

there  were  50  lepers  in  Iceland.  The  Danish  Govern- 
ment at  once  sent  out  an  expedition  to  Iceland  under 
the  leadership  of  Dr.  Bhlers  to  ascertain  the  extent  of 
the  disease.  He  visited  one  third  of  the  island  and 
found  149  cases  of  leprosy  among  the  sparse  popu- 
lation. Last  year,  1895,  the  commission  renewed 
their  labors  and  made  an  official  report,  which  declares 
that  there  are  several  hundred  cases,  that  the  disease  is 
increasing,  and  suggesting  a  hospital  in  which  to  segre- 
gate all  victims.  Under  the  direction  of  Bishop  Euch, 
Bishop  of  Denmark,  Father  Sveinsson,  S.  J. ,  is  about 
to  build  a  lazaretto  and  is  now  collecting  funds  for 
that  purpose.  Writing  quite  recently  he  says:  "  The 
frightful  misery  of  lepers  abandoned  in  this  land 
of  snows  may  well  appeal  to  every  tender  heart.  We 
need  not  recommend  the  work;  it  commends  itself  to 
all."  Four  sisters  of  the  congregation  of  St.  Joseph 
of  Chambry  have  gone  to  this  country,  who  will 
have  care  of  the  lepers. 


CHAPTER  V. 

IX  JAPAN. 

In  a  letter  just  received,  while  compiling  this  book, 
from  Kumamoto,  Province  of  Nagato,  Japan — a  letter 
that  was  nearly  two  months  in  reaching  its  destination, 
Father  J.  M,  Corre,  Missionary  Apostolic,  writes  of 
the  awful  scourge:  "  Of  course  there  are  many  kinds 
of  sick.  There  are  the  adult  sick  and  dying,  and 
there  are  little  children  who  have  not  3^et  the  use  of 
reason.  There  are  the  sick  and  dying  in  the  hospitals, 
the  sick  and  dying  in  their  homes,  the  sick  and  dying 
who  have  no  homes  but  are  lying  by  the  roadside  or 
in  abandoned  huts.  These  are  the  ordinary  diseases 
— dysenter}',  small-pox,  typhus,  and  cholera,  the  con- 
tagious or  epidemic  diseases  which  so  often  desolate 
Japan,  but,  above  all,  leprosy  and  syphilis,  two  evils 
no  less  terrible.  Close  by  Kumamoto,  there  is  a 
hamlet  called  Honmioji,  the  rendezvous  of  all  kinds 
of  sick,  especially  of  lepers,  who  gather  hither  from 
all  parts  of  the  empire.  The  greater  part  of  these 
wretched  creatures  are  outcasts  forever  from  their 
families.  As  the  people  of  Kumamoto  are  very  tolerant 
in  their  regard,  many  end  by  establishing  themselves 
for  good  in  the  hamlet,  where  they  form  one  of  the 
most  pitiable  collections  of  beings  to  be  seen  in  the 
whole  world.  The  state  of  these  wretches  is  really 
terrible.     They  are  piled  one  on  top  of  the  other  in 

li8 


In  Japan. 


119 


miserable  hovels  belonging  to  other  poor  people,  to 
whom  they  pay  about  a  fifth  or  two-fifths  of  a  cent  each, 
daily  for  their  lodging.  In  general,  they  have  only 
one  garment,  but  what  a  garment ! 

I  have  seen  in  one  of  these  wretched  holes  a  poor 
mother  who  had  no  feet,  scarcely  any  hands,  and  no 


TWO  JAPANESE  I.EPERS. 


other  clothing  than  an  old  piece  of  rag,  which  scarcely 
covered  half  of  her  shoulders.  With  her  little  naked 
baby  she  strove  to  cover  the  rest  of  her  person. 

Those  who  can  still  walk,  go  about  the  city  and 
the  country  begging.  The  more  skilful  succeed  on 
good  days  in  getting  as  much  as  three  or  four  cents. 
If  they  have  not  gone  too  far,  they  return  in  the  even- 
ing to  Honmioji,  and  sleep  in  the  hovels  just  de- 
scribed.    Some  go  a  great  distance  and  do  not  return 


120         Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

for  days  or  weeks.  The  villagers  treat  them  with 
considerable  humanity,  but  they  cannot  get  a  lodging 
anywhere;  they  have  to  sleep  in  the  vestibule  of  a 
temple,  in  a  corner  of  a  field,  or  in  the  forest  on  the 
naked  earth,  or  on  a  plank  of  wood.  To  cook  the 
few  handfuls  of  rice  which  they  have  begged,  they 
carry  a  little  saucepan,  worth  about  four  or  five  cents, 
and  prepare  their  poor  meal  far  away  from  dwelling 
houses,  wherever  they  can  find  a  bit  of  dry  wood  to 
make  a  fire.  Those  who  cannot  walk,  get  themselves 
carried  or  drag  themselves  to  the  wide  avenue  or  the 
steps  leading  to  the  pagoda,  where  from  morning  to 
night  they  implore  the  charity  of  pilgrims  and  passers- 
by.  The  maximum  of  their  daily  receipts  is  said  to 
be  from  two  to  three  cents.  But,  often  enough, 
through  fewness  of  visitors  or  other  causes,  they  get 
only  a  few  centimes,  sometimes  nothing,  and  many  of 
these  remain  two  or  three  days  without  eating. 

As  said  above,  they  sleep  in  huts  or  common  sheds. 
But  when  their  disease  reaches  a  certain  stage,  they 
exhale  such  an  odor  that  they  become  insupportable 
to  their  neighbors,  and  then  they  are  expelled.  From 
this  moment  they  no  longer  appear  with  the  rest; 
they  sleep  outside,  abandoned  by  all,  without  mat  or 
cover,  exposed  to  wind  and  rain,  weeping,  groaning, 
sighing  for  death,  which  generally  is  not  slow  in  com- 
ing. Then  nothing  is  left  but  to  bury  them.  Four 
or  five  of  their  campanions  dig  a  pit.  An  old  barrel 
is  bought,  the  corpse  is  thrown  into  it,  and  the  whole 
deposited  in  the  ground,  without  priest  or  ceremonies. 
A  burial  costs  eighteen  or  twenty  cents.  But  where 
is  the  money  to  come  from  ?     As  I  have  said,  some  of 


hi  Japan.  12 1 

them  have  a  little  saucepan;  this  is  sold.  Each  has 
also  a  rag  of  clothing;  of  course  this  cannot  be  left  in 
.  the  bier,  so  it  is  sold,  too,  and  may  fetch  eight  or  ten 
cents.  Then,  there  are,  beside  the  hovels,  dung- 
heaps,  which  are  regularly  sold  to  poor  farmers  of  the 
neighborhood  as  manure,  and  the  produce  serves  to 
complete  the  cost  of  the  funeral. 

Some  time  ago  I  was  desirous  to  ascertain  the 
history  of  a  certain  number  of  these  wretched  inhabi- 
tants of  Honmioji.  Here  are  some  of  the  details  I 
obtained : 

I. — Furuya  Ukichi,  of  the  province  of  Nagato, 
aged  twenty-eight,  a  leper.  Has  three  brothers,  all 
very  wretched,  who  are  unable  to  keep  him.  Has 
been  at  Honmioji  for  two  years.  Came  from  home 
penniless,  begging  on  the  way.  If  he  gets  better, 
says  he  will  return  home.  Adds  that  he  has  never 
seen  anybody  cured  since  he  came.  Says  that  he 
suffers  very  much  in  body,  and  that  "  his  soul  is  very 
sad."  Whilst  speaking  big  tears  roll  down  his 
cheeks  which  are  all  eaten  away  with  leprosy. 

2. — Uyeda  Masuzo,  province  of  lyo,  aged  thirty- 
four.  Has  had  leprosy  since  he  was  twenty-one,  and 
has  been  three  years  blind.  Efforts  were  made  to 
cure  him  at  home,  and  his  parents  have  spent  upon 
him  about  $200,  constituting  their  all. 

3. — Ayuwara  Otohe,  of  the  same  province,  eighteen 
years  old;  of  poor  family,  who  are  quite  unable  to 
attend  to  him.  Has  had  leprosy  only  two  years,  but 
is  already  frightfully  disfigured. 

4. — Fukuzawa  Kanekichi,  of  Sagami  province; 
aged  twenty-eight.     Eldest  of  a  poor  family,   whose 


122  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

support  he  has  been.  Has  been  a  leper  three  years. 
Thinks  only  of  his  parents,  and  wonders  what  they 
now  do  to  live.  Sleeps  in  the  woods,  on  the  bare 
earth,  or  on  a  stone. 

5. — Chikaha  Teru,  town  of  Shimabara,  a  girl  of 
twenty-three  years  of  age,  has  had  leprosy  three  years. 
Says  her  people  were  comfortably  well  off,  but  have 
spent  all  on  trying  to  get  her  cured. 

6. — Kato  ]\Iatazo,  province  of  Tajima,  aged  thirty. 
Has  only  his  mother,  who  brought  him  herself  to 
Homnioji.  Ashe  can't  walk,  she  goes  about  begging 
for  him. 

7. — Nakamura  Xami,  of  district  of  Akita,  in  Higo, 
girl  of  twenty-two  years  of  age.  Has  had  leprosy 
since  she  was  fifteen;  has  no  relations. 

8. — Tanaka  Rihe,  province  of  Sanuki,  aged  thirty- 
three.  Has  had  leprosy  for  six  years.  Nobody  can 
remain  near  him  on  account  of  offensive  odor,  so  he 
sleeps  in  the  open  air.  Cannot  walk;  often  has  noth- 
ing to  eat.     Appears  to  long  to  die. 

9. — ]\Iikado  Ukichi,  of  Chikugo  province,  aged 
twenty-five.  Has  had  leprosy  since  age  of  twent}'- 
two.  Can  walk  a  little,  but  cannot  go  beyond  pre- 
cints  of  pagoda;  begs  alms  from  pilgrims,  eats  when 
he  can,  and  sleeps  outside. 

10. — ]\Iatsubura  Kanshichi,  province  of  Sanuki, 
aged  eighteen.  Can  no  longer  walk,  and  sleeps  out- 
side. Seems  discontented  that  he  has  ever  been 
created. 

Here,  then,  are  ten  specimens  of  lepers,  in  honor 
of  the  ten  lepers  of  the  Gospel.  I  think  they  will 
suffice.     From  them  you  can  form  an  idea  of  the  rest. ' ' 


In  Japan.  123 

Father  Corre  is  making  heroic  efforts  to  establish  a 
hospital  or  lazaretto  at  an  expense  of  $8,000.  He 
.proposes  to  have  nurses  to  go  into  the  hospital  and 
private  houses  to  visit  and  nurse  the  sick,  instruct  and 
baptize  them. 

AT   GOTEMBA. 

The  French  missionaries  have  already  established 
a  leprosy  hospital  in  Japan.  About  six  years  ago  a 
Catholic  missionary,  Father  Vestevuide,  met  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Fuji-Yama,  commonly  called  by  the 
Japanese  Fooseyama,  a  woman  no  more  than  thirty 
years  of  age,  attacked  by  lepros}^  Abandoned  by  her 
husband  and  banished  to  an  obscure  hut,  she  was  the 
embodiment  of  misery.  Her  bed,  a  few  logs  of  wood 
covered  with  straw,  her  garments,  scanty  and  ragged, 
her  food,  a  cup  of  rice;  such  was  her  condition.  She 
had,  moreover,  become  blind. 

The  missionary  pitied  the  poor  soul,  and  longed  to 
help  her.  He  knew,  too,  that  near  Fuji-Yama  there 
were  many  lepers.  He  had  often  encountered  them 
when  on  visits  to  his  own  parishioners.  He  deter- 
mined to  found  a  hospital.  In  response  to  his  appeal 
for  aid  the  foreign  residents  of  Tokio  and  Yokohama 
gave  generously.  The  countries  beyond  the  sea, 
especially  France  and  Belgium,  sent  contributions. 
Thanks  to  this  liberality,  the  good  father  was  able  to 
buy  land,  build  several  houses,  and  gather  together  a 
small  number  of  lepers.  Others  were  added  to  the 
original  number,  and  when  Father  Vestevuide  died, 
three  years  ago,  and  left  the  work  to  Father  Vigroux, 
the  number  had  reached  thirty-five.    At  present  there 


124  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Chzirch. 

are  eighty,  which  seems  a  large  number  for  one  hos- 
pital, but  still  many  remain  uncared  for.  Certain 
villages  are  overflowing  with  them.  They  have  their 
favorite  quarters  where  they  assemble. 

"I  have  already  made  three  journeys  to  Kusatsu, 
where  there  are  baths  which  restore  a  degree  of  health 
to  the  poor  lepers,"  writes  Father  Vigroux.  "The 
lepers  are  eager  to  come  to  Gotemba,  but  unhap- 
pily I  can  take  in  no  more  at  present.  I  hired  a  house 
and  left  a  catechist  among  them,  and  when  I  returned 
eight  lepers  were  ready  for  baptism.  But  if  their 
physical  state  is  pitiable,  not  so  their  moral  condition. 
Those  who  become  Christians  are  resigned  and  even 
happy.  About  fifty  are  already  baptized,  or  prepared 
for  that  sacrament,  and  the  later  comers  are  studying 
the  doctrines." 


CHAPTER  VI. 


IN    MADAGASCAR. 


A  writer  in  the  September  (1895)  number  of  "  The 
Messenger  of  the  Sacred  Heart,"  says  in  an  article  on 
"The  Madagascar  Mission":  "The  treatment  the 
lepers  receive  to-day  in  Madagascar  is  about  the  same 
which  they  formerly  received  in  Europe,  and  which 
is  still  meted  out  to  the  lepers  of  the  East;  that  is  to 
say,  the  unfortunate  victims  of  this  frightful  malady 
are  hunted  from  their  homes  and  their  villages,  the 
law  strictly  prohibiting  any  intercourse  with  them. 
The  greater  number  of  them  having  lost  the  use  of 
some  of  their  limbs,  would  be  incapable  of  finding 
food  for  themselves,  did  not  the  mission  come  to  their 
aid  and  build,  almost  without  funds,  a  home  for  those 
afflicted  beings.  A  few  miles  from  Tananarive  stands 
the  asylum  for  these  lepers.  The  first  buildings 
erected  were  but  mere  sheds,  as  the  mission,  with  the 
small  sum  of  money  at  its  disposal,  could  not  afford 
to  provide  any  better.  To-day,  thanks  to  charitable 
contributions,  the  new  quarters  are  sufficiently  com- 
fortable. Two  large  structures,  covered  with  tiles  and 
a  white-washed  building  in  the  center,  which  serves 
as  a  church,  compose  the  buildings  known  as  the 
Leper  House  of  St.  Camillus  at  Ambahivoraka. " 

A  writer  in  the  "Journal  des  Debats, "  of   Paris, 

writes  of  this  leper  house  as  follows:     "I  visited  the 

Leper   House   one   Sunday  evening  at  the  hour  of 

125 


126 


Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Ouirch. 


devotions.  Those  among  the  lepers  who  were  still 
able  to  move  had  assembled  in  church,  when  they 
were  singing  hymns.     As  leprosy  is  a  well-known 


disease,  I  shall  not  stop  here  to  describe  the  dreadful 
spectacle  presented  by  these  poor  wretches,  deprived 
of  one  or  several  of  their  members,  whose  faces  are 
often  one  large  wound,   nor  of  the  fetid  odor  which 


hi  Madagascar.  127 

exhaled  from  them.  The  men  who  devote  them- 
selves to  the  care  of  these  repugnant  beings,  are  cer- 
tainly deserving  of  all  our  admiration,  and  it  is  but 
just  that  we  should  give  credit  to  the  abnegation  of 
our  missionaries,  who  were  the  first  to  think  of  put- 
ting up  this  asylum,  and  who  have  had  but  one 
thought  since  they  began  the  good  work,  namely, 
how  best  they  might  ameliorate  the  condition  and 
increase  the  comforts  of  these  afflicted  beings,  with 
the  small  sums  at  their  disposal."  Bishop  Cazet, 
Vicar-Apostolic  of  Madagascar,  visited  these  lepers 
and  spent  ten  days  among  them.  He  writes:  "I 
arrived  at  the  leper  home  on  the  morning  of  Decem- 
ber 14.  I  had  hardly  arrived  when  some  one  came 
to  inform  me  that  a  Catholic  had  died  the  previous 
day,  and  was  about  to  be  buried.  I  hastened  to  the 
cabin  where  the  corpse  lay,  to  offer  some  prayers, 
and  here  I  found  a  large  number  of  lepers  reciting  the 
rosary  for  the  departed.  In  the  evening,  all  the 
lepers  assembled  in  the  church.  I  was  delighted  at 
the  spirit  with  which  they  sang  their  hymns,  and 
especially  at  the  way  they  recited  their  prayers. 

"Sunday,  December  15. — I  baptized  a  little  girl 
two  months  and  a  half  old.  What  a  sickly  little 
creature!  Already  devoured  by  the  disease.  It  will 
not  be  long  until  she  will  be  called  hence  to  a  better 
world. — A  few  days  after  my  departure  I  heard  of  her 
death. 

"Monday,  December  16. — To-day,  according  to  cus- 
tom, the  weekly  allowance  of  rice  came  from  Tanana- 
rive, then  Jean  Marie,  the  chief  of  this  little  village, 
gave  to  each  a  portion, 


128  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

"Wednesday,  December  i8. — Jean  Marie  came  to 
me  and  said :  'There  are  two  women,  whose  condition 
prevents  them  from  ever  going  to  church ;  they  would 
very  much  like  to  see  you.'  'Are  they  very  ill?'  I 
asked.  'No,'  he  replied,  'but  they  are  too  infirm  to 
walk.'  I  went  immediately  to  visit  them  in  their 
cabins.  The  feet  of  one  of  these  women  were  entirely 
devoured  by  leprosy;  she  could  neither  stand  nor  walk. 
The  other  was  bed-ridden. 

"Friday,  December  20. — Great  distribution  of 
laniba.^  cotton  cloth.  Twice  each  year  each  leper 
receives  enough  cloth  to  clothe  him;  five  yards  of 
American  stuff  suffices  for  each  one.  One  ought  to 
witness  with  what  patience  and  interest  they  assist  at 
this  distribution.  For  two  hours  they  sat  in  lines, 
the  women  on  one  side,  the  men  on  the  other,  while 
the  cloth  was  being  cut  in  lengths. 

"Sunday,  December  22. — Closing  of  my  mission. 
Although  Mass  was  not  to  be  said  until  9  o'clock,  by 
7  o'clock  all  the  lepers  had  assembled  in  the  chapel, 
dressed  in  their  new  lamba.  After  Mass  I  baptized 
thirty-nine  adults  and  confirmed  forty-nine  persons 
who  had  recently  received  baptism;  eight  of  these 
last  also  received  their  First  Holy  Communion.  At 
this  leper-colony  over  a  hundred  lepers  are  fed, 
clothed  and  lodged  by  the  Mission.  No  less  than 
forty  die  yearly  at  this  leper  home  alone." 

A  writer  in  the  October  (1895)  number  of  "The 
Sacred  Heart  Messenger,"  continuing  the  article  on 
"The  Madagascar  Mission,"  says:  "Some  months 
ago,  a  hospital  for  lepers,  like  that  of  Imerina,  was 
established  at  Betsileo.     Without  beingr  a  larg^e  or 


In  Madagascar.  129 

imposing  structure,  this  hospital  provides  at  least  a 
comfortable  home  for  the  poor  lepers.  It  is  a  build- 
ing sixty  meters  long,  with  a  chapel  in  the  center 
and  a  pavilion  at  each  end.  There  are  twenty-eight 
rooms,  which  can  supply  accommodations  to  about 
sixty  lepers.  Not  far  from  the  asylum  a  little  tem- 
porary lodging  has  been  erected  for  the  use  of  the 
chaplain  and  the  infirmarian.  It  is  built  on  a  very 
picturesque  site.  Already  there  are  twenty-three 
lepers  in  this  establishment;  it  is  capable  of  accom- 
modating sixty,  but  the  funds  are  low.  At  the  wish 
of  the  principal  benefactors  of  the  home,  it  has  been 
dedicated  to  St.  Lawrence — hence  the  name,  Saint 
Lawrent  de  Marana^ 


CHAPTER  VII. 


IX  SOUTH  a:\ierica. 


In  the  United  States  of  Colombia,  South  America, 
there  is  a  leper  colony  at  Agua  de  Dios.  The  Rev. 
^Michael  Unia,  the  leper-apostle  of  this  colony,  has 
given  up  his  life  for  the  victims  of  this  dread  scourge. 
He  died  last  December  at  Turin,  the  headquarters  of 
the  Salesian  missionaries.  On  October  14  last  he 
left  South  America  by  order  of  his  Superiors  and  doc- 
tor. While  attending  the  lepers  he  contracted  a  dis- 
ease that  it  was  certain  would  cause  his  death.  In 
fact  when  he  started  for  Turin  he  was  almost  in  a 
dying  state.  His  departure  from  his  unfortunate  peo- 
ple caused  him  to  grieve  even  more  than  the}'.  They 
loved  the  good  man,  for  he  went  to  them  ready  to  lay 
down  his  life  for  them. 

Father  IMichael  Unia,  or  Don  Unia,  as  he  was 
called,  was  in  the  prime  of  life  at  the  time  of  his 
death.  He  would  have  been  forty-six  years  old  had 
he  lived  until  December  18  last.  Six  years  ago  he 
left  Turin,  the  headquarters  of  the  Salesian  Mission- 
aries, to  labor  in  South  America.  The  lazaretto  of 
Agua  de  Dois  is  about  three  days'  march  from  Santa 
Fe  de  Bogota.  From  the  latter  place  in  1891  Don 
Unia  wrote  to  his  Superior  in  Turin  that  he  longed  to 
devote  himself  to  the  service  of  the  lepers.  A  letter 
written  ten  days  later  reports  Don  Unia  already  at  the 


In  South  America.  131 

lazaretto  and  feeling  "quite  happy."  He  describes 
the  rejoicing  among  the  lepers  at  his  coming,  adding: 

"As  we  drew  near  about  a  hundred  little  boys  in 
Sunday  clothes  and  shining  faces  advanced  with  many 
little  banners  flapping  above  their  heads.  These 
were  followed  by  white-robed  little  girls  bearing 
palms  and  flowers  and  singing  hymns.  It  was  a  sim- 
ple scene  and  yet  so  touching  that  it  drew  tears  from 
my  eyes.  But  the  sight  soon  changed  for  me  when  I 
visited  those  lying  in  the  lazaretto.  God  help  them! 
■ — breathing  carcasses  in  a  long  protracted  putrefac- 
tion. One  without  hands,  another  without  arms,  an- 
other has  no  feet.  Here  is  one  whose  flesh  is  drop- 
ping off  piecemeal,  and  in  this  awful  condition  they 
drag  out  a  miserable  decade."  Don  Unia  confesses 
his  "  heart  sank  "  at  first.  But  as  he  found  these  af- 
flicted beings  brighten  at  his  presence  he  felt  that 
"  ghastly  smile  "  a  great  reward  for  weakness  over- 
come ! 

Though  he  was  at  the  outset  "  stunned  and  stupe- 
fied," the  very  misery  of  his  terrible  congregation 
made  the  irresistible  force  of  its  appeal  to  him,  and  he 
resolved  more  firmly  than  ever  to  live  with  and  for 
the  lepers.  Between  infected  and  non-infected  the 
lepers  numbered  upward  of  1,200  souls.  He  was  the 
only  priest  there.  He  looked  after  his  1,200  charges, 
celebrated  ]Mass,  administered  the  Sacraments  and  con- 
soled the  poor  tortured  creatures  by  visiting  them  sev- 
eral times  a  day. 

'  *  Taking  everything  into  account, ' '  wrote  the  noble 
priest.  "I  think  work  won't  be  wanting,  so  my  life 
will  be  a  happy  one,"     If  he  should  become  a  leper, 


132  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

he  added,  and  cease  to  be  able  to  say  Mass,  he  could 
still  confess  and  console  the  afflicted  ones,  though  he 
should  be  covered  with  ulcers.  Meantime  he  always 
declared  himself  "happy" — though  the  temperature 
(86  to  95  degrees  F.)  was  "unpleasantly  high."  "His 
habitation,"  he  said,  "consists  of  a  shed  divided  into 
two  little  chambers  and  covered  with  palm  leaves, 
through  which  the  rain  passes  beautifully;  but,  with 
the  burning  heat  one  suffers,  a  little  water  will  do  no 
harm.  A  fine  little  boy  has  been  told  off  to  attend  to 
my  few  wants.  He  brings  me  something  to  eat  twice 
a  day,  just  as  the  crow  used  to  do  by  the  old  hermit." 
His  oft-repeated  expression  was:  "  My  lepers — my 
poor  lepers — that  is  my  mission."  Other  Salesian 
missionaries  will  continue  the  work  among  the  lepers 
of  Agua  de  Dios. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

IN  INDIA AT  MANGALORE. 

Father  Zauetta,  S.  J. ,  writes  of  this  mission  in  the 
April,  1896,  number  of  the  "Sacred  Heart  Messenger," 
and  among  other  things  gives  the  following  description 
of  St.  Joseph's  Leper  Asylum  at  that  place:  "Of  the 
many  maladies  peculiar  to  the  tropics,  leprosy  is,  un- 
doubtedly, one  of  the  most  frightful.  One  of  its 
species  is  not  only  most  loathsome  to  the  sight,  but 
also  very  noxious  in  its  nature.  It  does  not  attack 
merely  the  skin,  but  goes  on  gnawing  to  the  very 
bones.  It  makes  its  first  appearance  on  the  extrem- 
ities of  the  body — the  ears,  the  nose,  the  hands  and 
the  feet — and  often  reduces  its  victims  to  a  deformed 
trunk  with  mutilated  limbs,  thus  rendering  them  un- 
able to  help  themselves  in  any  way.  Besides  the  great 
physical  sufferings,  occasioned  by  this  disease,  and 
the  universal  abhorrence  in  which  they  are  held,  they 
have  to  endure  the  additional  pang  of  life-long  separ- 
ation from  kith  and  kin.  In  other  places,  the  com- 
passionate heart  and  the  skillful  hand  of  the  Sisters 
of  various  religious  congregations  have  done  all  that 
Christian  charity  could  inspire  them  with,  to  alleviate 
the  sufferings  and  miseries  of  these  unhappy  human 
beings.      Our  mission,  too,  though  destitute  of  such 

religious  congregations  devoted  to  such  heroic  works 

133 


134  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

of  mercy,  could  not  altogether  overlook  the  wretched 
condition  of  these  suffering  members  of  Christ,  so  dear 
to  His  Sacred  Heart.  A  sad  incident  which  happened 
in  1883  hastened  the  adoption  of  some  measures  to 
bring  to  these  unfortunates  what  relief  we  could. 

"In  the  month  of  August  of  that  year  a  little  cart 
drawn  by  a  small  bullock,  stopped  before  the  gate 
of  our  seminary.  It  was  accompanied  by  two  pagans 
of  good  caste,  who  unable  to  provide  separate  lodg- 
ings for  their  poor  mother,  already  in  an  advanced 
stage  of  leprosy,  and  hearing  that  we  had  an  asylum 
for  the  poor  and  sick,  had  brought  her  hither  in  a 
cart.  Having,  as  yet,  no  house  destined  to  receive 
lepers,  we  were  under  the  painful  necessity  of  telling 
them  to  wait  for  a  few  days  more,  till  a  shelter  could 
be  raised  for  her,  at  some  distance  from  the  dwellings. 
It  was  for  the  first  time  that  we  were,  to  our  great 
sorrow,  obliged  to  refuse  admission  to  a  pagan,  that 
sought  it  in  our  asylum. 

"But  before  the  completion  of  the  hut,  we  received 
the  sad  intelligence  of  her  death  without  baptism;  but 
we  had,  in  our  grief,  the  consolation  to  learn  that 
grace  had  not  knocked  at  her  heart  in  vain,  and  that, 
seeing  her  end  fast  approaching,she  had  sent  for  a  Cath- 
olic priest  from  the  nearest  parish,  though,  unfortu- 
nately, none  was  at  hand  when  the  need  was  sorest. 
We  humbly  hope  that  Almighty  God  accepted  her 
baptism  of  desire,  and,  in  his  infinite  mercy,  saved 
her  poor  soul. 

"A  couple  of  months  after  this  sad  occurrence,  an- 
other leper  sought  admission  into  our  asylum.  Gladly 
did  we  welcome  him  into  the  poor  hut  that  had  been 


In  India — at  Mangalore. 


135 


prepared,  but  alas  !  too  late  for  the  other  unfortunate 
leper. 


"This  was  the  small  beginning  of  St.  Joseph's  leper 
asylum.     As  the  lepers  gradually  increased  in  num- 


136  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Chtirck. 

bers  it  became  necessary  to  increase  the  accommoda- 
tion also.  But  until  a  new  building  could  be  raised, 
we  utilized  for  this  purpose  a  house  with  three  suf- 
ficiently large  rooms,  situated  in  a  corner  of  our  prem- 
ises. As  soon  as  our  scanty  resources  permitted  us, 
we  began  to  build  a  house  for  men,  and,  a  little  later 
on,  another  for  women,  at  a  few  yards'  distance  from 
the  first.  On  December  3,  1889,  the  two  houses  were 
solemnly  blessed,  on  which  occasion,  a  short  discourse 
was  delivered  to  the  lepers  and  other  neophytes  that 
had  gathered  around.  Now  that  the  poor  creatures 
were  more  comfortably  lodged  than  before,  we  may 
be  said  to  have  given  a  more  regular  shape  to  our 
leper  asylum. 

"In  front  of  these  two  houses  there  was  a  plot  of 
ground  surrounded  by  a  mud  wall,  where  the  inmates 
could  come  out  to  enjoy  themselves  and  breathe  a  lit- 
tle fresh  air.  Here  such  as  could  do  some  work  be- 
gan to  cultivate  a  few  vegetables,  while  the  children 
attended  to  a  small  flower-garden.  This  work,  while 
it  served  to  render  their  daily  routine  of  life  less  mo- 
notonous, also  gave  them  a  moderate  and  healthy  ex- 
ercise. 

"The  building  of  the  two  new  houses,  and  the  cost 
of  providing  for  the  inmates,  was  a  heavy  strain  upon 
our  slender  resources.  But  the  sight  of  these  miser- 
able creatures,  dragging  their  ulcerous  limbs  along 
the  streets,  had  urged  us  to  undertake  the  work  of 
sheltering  them  in  a  separate  hospital.  This  was  not 
only  an  act  of  charity  to  the  suffering  themselves,  but 
also  a  favor  to  the  general  public,  since,  by  so  doing, 
the  spread  of  this  frightful  disease  was  to  some  extent 


In  India — at  Mangatore.  137 

checked.  So,  confiding  in  the  goodness  of  God,  and  re- 
lying on  the  assistance  of  charitable  persons,  it  was 
determined  to  receive  all  those  who  should  ask  to  be 
housed  here.  Nor  had  we  reason  to  repent  of  the 
step  we  had  taken,  for  God  inspired  generous  souls  to 
come  to  our  aid,  and  a  number  of  gentlemen,  besides 
their  usual  subscription  to  our  asylum,  sent  in  special 
contributions  for  the  support  of  the  lepers.  The 
Jesuit  novices,  too,  who,  during  their  customary  pil- 
grimages, begged  alms  for  the  lepers,  one  and  all  bore 
testimony  to  the  readiness  with  which  all  classes  of 
men  responded  to  their  appeal  for  help  in  behalf  of 
the  lepers. 

"In  these  new  homes,  the  number  of  lepers  went  on 
increasing  steadily.  There  were  represented  among 
them  all  the  different  stages  of  the  malady,  from  the 
surface  blotches,  insensible,  even  to  the  pricking  of  a 
needle,  to  the  most  loathsome  and  ulcerous  wounds, 
with  putrid  matter  and  worms.  It  could  not  but 
move  one's  heart  with  the  tenderest  compassion  to 
witness  their  sufferings  and  pain.  From  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Asylum  at  the  close  of  the  year 
1883  till  the  beginning  of  1889,  altogether  fifty  lepers 
had  been  received  by  us,  and,  at  the  last  mentioned 
period,  there  were  actually  twenty-one  under  our  care. 
This  fact  speaks  favorably  for  the  treatment  they  re- 
ceived in  the  Asylum,  as  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
they  prefer  a  roving  to  a  sedentary  life,  and  would 
rather  eke  out  a  scanty  livelihood  in  their  own  families 
than  be  supported  in  a  hospital.  Occasionally,  how- 
ever, we  went  to  considerable  inconvenience  in  get- 
ting them  here,  for  we  deemed  our  efforts  repaid  well 


138  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

if  we  could  only  separate  them  from  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  family. 

"The  Director  of  the  Asylum  paid  them  regular  vis- 
its, to  ascertain  from   them  whether  those  in  charge 


GROUP   OF   MALE   I.EPERS- INDIA. 


did  their  duty,  and  whether  they  had  any  grievances 
to  complain  of.  The  Brother  Infirmarian  daily  vis- 
ited each  patient,   and,   as  far    as  means  permitted. 


In  India — at  Mangaloyr.  1 39 

looked  after  the  wants  of  each  one.  The  Jesuit 
scholastics  and  novices,  who  went  regularly  to  teach 
them  catechism,  as  also  the  Fathers  and  Seminarists 
who  paid  them  occasional  visits,  tried  to  promote 
among  them  the  spirit  of  resignation  and  contentment 
under  suflFering.  And  they,  on  their  part,  gave  us  no 
small  compensation  for  our  care  and  labors  by  their 
piety  and  good  behavior. 

''The  earnestness  with  which  most  of  the  lepers 
took  up  the  practices  of  the  Apostleship  of  Pra}"er, 
deser\-es  mention,  as  also  their  diligence  in  practising 
the  Treasur}-  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  For  this  purpose 
there  was  fixed  in  the  wall  a  small  tin  box,  with  sev- 
eral little  compartments,  in  each  of  which  the  lepers 
put  every  evening  as  many  small  grains  as  they  had 
performed  acts  of  any  particular  virtue  during  the 
day.  This  pious  practice  greatly  ser^'cd  to  foster 
among  them  the  spirit  of  resignation,  charity  and  self- 
sacrifice. 

"According  to  the  goverment  statistics  of  1SS6,  there 
were  300  lepers  in  this  district  of  South  Canana;  i.e.^ 
one  in  every  3,000  inhabitants.  But  the  proportion 
must  have  been  larger  still — at  least,  so  it  was  here, 
in  Mangalore,  the  chief  town  of  the  district.  Xe\-er- 
theless,  till  18S6,  neither  the  municipality  nor  the  gov- 
ernment had  thought  of  opening  a  hospital  to  receive 
them.  In  that  year,  the  question  of  the  increase  of 
the  number  of  lepers,  and  the  consequent  danger  to 
the  public,  began  to  occupy  the  attention  of  some  of  the 
members  of  the  Town  Council  in  ^langalore.  Accord- 
ingly, in  June,  1886,  one  of  the  members,  a  Catholic, 
wrote    to  the  Director  of   the   Asvluni    askino-    him 


140  Leprosy,  atid  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

he  would  (on  the  promise  of  a  municipal  grant  for 
their  support)  admit  into  our  hospital  the  lepers  of 
the  district,  irrespective  of  caste  or  religion. 

"The  Director  having  accepted  the  proposal,  the 
question  was  brought  forward  and  discussed  in  the 
next  sitting  of  the  Council,  which  decided  to  con- 
tribute at  the  rate  of  Ks  2]/2  (about  sixty-five  cents) 
a  month  for  each  leper,  for  a  number  of  inmates  not 
exceeding  ten.  This  scanty  pittance  commenced 
from  December  of  the  same  year.  At  this  point 
other  rivals  appeared  in  the  field.  The  Basel  Mission, 
Evangelical  Protestants,  who  always  stand  in  our 
way,  having  come  to  hear  of  the  arrangements  of  the 
Town  Council,  were  inflamed  with  a  sudden  zeal  for 
the  welfare  of  these  abandoned  wretches,  and  burnt 
with  a  desire  of  sharing  with  us  in  this  work  of  char- 
ity. They  offered  to  open  another  hospital  for  them, 
on  the  same  conditions  as  ourselves,  and  the  Munici- 
pal Council  accepted  their  proposal  likewise.  From 
June,  1887,  the  allowance  was  cut  down  to  half  the 
sum;  i.  <?. ,  thirty-two  cents  per  head,  being  still  sub- 
ject to  the  above  mentioned  restriction — so  that  for 
feeding  eighteen  persons,  we  received  $3. 20,  whereas 
the  Protestants  obtained  ^1.60  for  supporting  five 
lepers. 

"At  the  time  when  the  civilized  world  was  in  admi- 
ration at  the  generous  charity  and  self-sacrifice  of 
Father  Damien,  and  a  deep  sense  of  piety  mingled 
with  a  keen  interest  had  been  aroused  in  the  hearts 
of  men  for  these  castaways  of  humanity.  Count  Mattel 
proved  himself  another  benefactor  of  the  human  race, 
and  in  particular,  also  of  the  lepers,  though  in  another 


In  India — at  Mangalore.  141 

line,  viz.^  by  inventing  for  the  relief  of  the  latter  a 
specific  based  upon  the  principles  of  what  he  termed 
"  Electro-Homceopathy. "  For  lack  of  subjects,  how- 
ever, he  had  not  had  the  opportunity  of  putting  its 
virtue  to  the  test  in  his  own  country  of  Italy.  Rev. 
Father  ]\Iiiller,  S.J.,  who  had  already  opened  a  liomce- 
opathic  poor  dispensary  here,  determined  to  give  the 
medicine  a  fair  trial.  This  he  did  about  the  middle 
of  the  year  1890,  and,  encouraged  by  the  partial  suc- 
cess obtained  in  the  case  of  a  few  patients,  he  under- 
took to  make  the  experiment  on  a  larger  scale,  so  as 
to  include  all  our  lepers.  To  insure  success,  he  ap- 
plied to  them  the  profits  of  the  poor  dispensar)-,  mak- 
ing up  thereby  what  was  wanting  to  a  diet  more  suit- 
able to  their  disease  and  to  the  treatment  they  were 
to  undergo. 

"To  enter  into  the  details  of  the  new  treatment 
would  be  foreign  to  our  purpose.  To  carry  out  the 
prescriptions  exactly,  it  was  necessary  to  engage  the 
services  of  some  faithful  ser\^ant.  But  as  such  a  per- 
son was  not  immediately  available,  on  account  of  the 
revolting  nature  of  the  duties  to  be  performed,  we 
asked  some  of  the  most  intelligent  boys  of  our  orphan- 
age whether  they  were  willing  to  undertake  the  work, 
staying-  a  week  by  turns,  in  a  small  shed  raised  for  the 
purpose  close  to  the  hospital.  They  willingly  ac- 
ceded to  the  request,  and  continued  to  perform  this 
work  of  charity  for  a  long  time,  till  a  grown-up  per- 
son was  found  to  replace  them.  Each  week  two  bovs 
remained  there  from  morning  till  evening,  one  to  dis- 
tribute the  medicines,  and  the  other  to  see  that  they 
were  duly  taken.     The  rest  of  the  day  they  spent  in 


14^  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

preparing  the  medicines,  baths  and  the  like.  They 
also  used  at  times  to  relate  or  to  read  aloud  edifying 
stories  to  console  and  recreate  their  poor  charges.  It 
is  needless  to  say  that  we  felt  no  small  consolation  at 
these  works  of  zeal  and  charit}-,  seeing  that  the  care 
and  labor  bestowed  upon  the  education  of  their  chil- 
dren but  lately  rescued  from  pagan  superstition  had 
borne  such  good  and  abundant  fruit. 


A   GROUP   OF   FEiIAI,E   LEPERS —INDIA. 


"The  improvements  introduced  and  the  hope  of  a 
cure  under  new  treatment  induced  many  more  lepers 
to  seek  shelter  under  our  roof;  their  number  soon 
rose  from  twenty-one  to  forty.  A  new  house  became 
necesf.an.-  in  addition  to  the  two  already  existing,  and 
Father  Miiller  had  it  built.  In  a  few  months  the 
happy  results  of  the  treatment,  on  those  who  followed 
it  regularly,  were  clearly  perceived. 

''That  the  lepers  greatly  benefited  by  the  experi- 
ment is  undubitable;  for,  to  the  truth  of  it,  we  have 
the  willing  testimony,  not  only  of  the  patients  them- 


hi  India — at  Mangalore.  143 

selves,  but  that  of  many  experts  who,  drawn  either 
by  curiosity  or  charity,  were  frequent  visitors  at  the 
asylum.  Of  these,  some  were  persons  that  occupied 
the  highest  stations  in  the  district,  and  who  con- 
fessed that  the  condition  of  the  lepers  was  greatly 
ameliorated  since  the  introduction  of  the  new  specific. 


FATHER   MULLER  AND   A    LITTLE   LEPER. 

"By  this  time  the  fame  of  the  Mattel  medicines  began 
to  be  noised  abroad,  and  awakened  in  the  lepers  of 
other  parts  of  India  a  desire  to  undergo  the  treatment; 
but,  belonging  as  they  do  to  some  well-to-do  families, 
they  could  not  be  lodged  in  the  same  hospital  with 
the  other  lepers.  In  vain  did  Father  Miiller  look 
out  for  another  house,  for  some  time.     In  this  emer- 


144  Leprosy,  ayid  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

geticy,  the  good  Carmelite  Nuns  came  to  the  rescue 
and  put  at  his  disposal  a  comfortable  house  belonging 
to  them,  and  conveniently  situated  just  outside  their 
premises.  It  was  their  charity  that  urged  them  to 
this  step,  though  they  knew  well  enough  that,  by  so 
doing,  they  practically  surrendered  for  the  future  all 
their  rights  to  the  house;  for  a  dwelling  once  occu- 
pied by  a  leper  is  considered  no  more  habitable  by 
any  respectable  person — such  is  the  universal  dread 
of  the  contagion  of  leprosy. 

"Adjoining  this  property,  there  was  another  large 
piece  of  ground,  which  was  considered  a  splendid 
site  for  a  new  hospital.  With  the  approval  of  the 
municipal  authorities,  he  bought  up  the  plot  of 
ground  and  set  to  work  on  it  without  delay.  By  the 
end  of  February,  1892,  the  two  houses,  in  which  our 
lepers  were  to  live  hereafter  under  the  immediate 
direction  of  Father  Miiller,  were  ready  to  receive 
their  inmates,  and  on  the  first  of  March  the  shifting 
took  place.  Here  they  are  much  better  off  as  regards 
accommodation,  the  extent  of  the  premises,  purity  of 
the  atmosphere  and  healthy  surroundings.  We  cannot 
but  rejoice  with  our  lepers  at  this  improvement  of 
their  material  condition;  but  it  is  a  joy  not  unmixed 
with  sorrow,  for  it  has  been  the  cause  of  their  separa- 
tion from  us.  True  it  is  that  the  very  sight  of  some 
newcomers  is  revolting  and  that  their  wretchedness 
causes  one  instinctively  to  shrink  from  them,  but  we 
have  always  found  that  under  that  loathsome  exterior 
there  were  often  hearts  capable  of  tender  feelings  and 
noble  sentiments.  We  have,  however,  the  good  for- 
tune of  still  being  entrusted  with  the  spiritual  care  of 


In  India — at  Mayigalore.  145 

their  souls.  The  Jesuit  scholastics  continue  teaching 
them  the  Christian  doctrine.  This  is  due  to  the  kind- 
ness of  Father  Miiller,  whose  sphere  of  utility  is  so 
widening  every  day  as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of 
his  attending  to  any  other  duties  but  those  immedi- 
ately connected  with  his  present  important  undertak- 
ings." 

AT   MANDALAY. 

It  is  now  five  years  since  Father  Wehinger,  follow- 
ing the  example  of  Father  Damien,  consecrated  his 
life  to  the  service  of  the  lepers.  The  scene  of  the 
labors  of  this  heroic  French  priest,  however,  is  not  a 
lonely  island  in  the  Pacific,  but  a  crowded  hospital 
in  Mandalay.  By  small  grants  from  the  Government 
and  the  gifts  of  charitable  persons  in  Burma  he  has 
been  able  to  undertake  the  care  of  150  lepers.  Father 
Wehinger  is  happily  not  alone  in  his  terrible  work. 
Father  Matin  and  a  French  nursing  sister,  helped  by 
two  Burmese  female  converts,  have  associated  them- 
selves, for  him  and  for  the  love  of  God,  to  minister 
to  the  sufferers.  But  to  overtake  the  need  efforts  on 
a  larger  scale  are  necessary,  and  Father  Wehinger 
has  gone  to  England  to  ask  for  help. 

"It  is,"  he  says,  "  to  ensure  the  permanency  of 
this  work,  we  have  begun  to  increase  its  efficiency,  to 
enlarge  its  field  of  operation,  that  I  come  seeking 
funds  in  Europe,  that  I  appeal  to  the  English  peo- 
ple. To  them,  above  all,  I  appeal  ;  for  in  assuming 
the  government  of  Burma  with  it  they  assumed  the 
care  of  all  sections  of  its  population.  And  among 
these  the  lepers,  alas  !  for  very  numbers  sake,  cannot 


146  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

be  forgotten.  Incredible  though  it  may  sound,  com- 
petent authorities  estimate  them  at  thirty  thousand, 
and  by  none  are  they  put  at  less  than  eighteen. 
But  mere  numbers  apart,  which  of  all  the  sections  of 
the  people  of  Burma  has  needs  so  generally  acknowl- 
edged, or,  by  its  misery,  can  more  effectually  urge 
them  than  do  these  lepers — who,  moreover,  are  no 
less  the  children  of  the  Queen-Empress  than  any  of 
the  afflicted  dwelling  nearer  home,  whose  needs 
being  better  known,  are  never  forgotten?  For  this 
reason,  with  especial  confidence,  I  address  myself  to 
all  in  this  country  ;  nor  do  I  come  without  encour- 
agement. Gratefully  do  I  acknowledge  that  my 
chief  help  in  Burma  has  come  from  English  hands 
and  English  purses.  Still,  this  help  has  been,  and 
must  be  insufficient  ;  for  resources  in  Burma  are  nar- 
row and  the  rich  are  few.  Arrived  in  England,  how- 
ever, I  stand  at  a  disadvantage.  In  Burma  the  lep- 
ers' cause  and  the  leper  asylum,  familiar  to  all,  plead 
for  themselves  ;  here  these  are  unknown,  and  m5^self 
a  stranger."  An  influential  committee,  which 
includes  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  Eord  Ripon,  Lord 
Dufferin,  Lord  Roberts  and  the  Lord  Mayor,  has  been 
formed  to  promote  the  success  of  Father  Wehinger's 
appeal. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

IN    LOUISIANA. 

Four  daughters  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  are  in 
charge  of  the  "  I^eper  Colony,"  at  Indian  Camp,  near 
White  Castle,  Louisiana:  Sister  Beatrice,  the  superi- 
oress, who  came  from  lyowell,  Mass.,  where  she  had 
been  in  charge  of  a  hospital  for  22  years;  Sister  Anne, 
who  had  been  for  10  years  in  the  wards  of  the  New 
Orleans  Charity  Hospital,  and  Sister  Cyril  and  Sis- 
ter Mary  Thomas,  who  came  from  La  Salle,  Illinois. 
The  "New  Orleans  Picayune",  under  date  of  April 
17,  1896,  gives  such  a  touching  description  of  their 
departure  that  I  give  portions  of  the  article  in  these 
pages. 

"Bound  for  the  leper  land  !" 

'  'There  was  a  pause  in  the  busy  rush  on  the  levee, 
men  gathered  in  hushed  groups  on  the  river  bank, 
and  every  hat  was  doffed  as  four  dark-robed  women 
made  their  way  through  the  expectant  throng  to  the 
landing  of  the  Paul  Tulane. 

'  'Who  were  they?  Ah  !  who  can  tell  the  identity  of 
the  Sisters  of  Charity — those  sweet,  soft-voiced  women 
who  move  along  the  rough  paths  of  the  world,  mak- 
ing no  louder  noise  than  the  rustle  of  an  angel's 
wings,  with  the  light  of  heaven  in  their  eyes  and  the 
touch  of  the  unseen  world  in  their  gentle  hands. 

"And  these  four  nuns?     They  were  heroines,  every 

147 


148  Leprosy,  atid  the  Charity  of  the  Church. 

one  of  them,  albeit  they  went  so  quietly  on  their  way 
yesterday  afternoon,  taking  up  with  willing  hands  and 
of  their  own  volition  a  work  at  which  the  heart  of  the 
strongest  man  might  quail.  It  was  the  sunset  hour, 
the  last  rays  lit  up  with  an  aureole  of  splendor  the 
big  ships  lying  at  their  moorings,  as  the  little  group 
of  nuns  swiftly  stepped  over  the  plankway  of  the  Paul 
Tulane,  and  again  were  heard  in  hushed  whispers  the 
words  which  sealed  their  fate,  'They  are  bound  for 
leper  land. ' 

"Presently  the  four  nuns  were  joined  by  Sister 
Agnes,  the  veteran  superioress  of  the  corps  of  charity 
hospital  nurses,  and  Sister  Mary  Jane,  the  equally 
heroic  directress  of  the  Louisiana  Retreat. 

"And  in  this  trio  of  forces  was  at  once  represented 
the  most  exalted  and  self-sacrificing  devotion  of  the 
Daughters  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul — the  care  of  the 
sick  and  insane  and  the  outcast  ones  of  the  earth. 
Since  its  organization  the  Sisters  of  Charity  have  had 
the  care  of  the  New  Orleans  Charity  Hospital  and 
the  retreat  for  the  insane;  to  these  self-appointed 
duties  they  have  now  taken  up  the  care  of  the  lepers, 
those  unhappy,  God-forsaken  people,  whose  pitiable 
and  unfortunate  condition  some  four  years  ago,  as 
first  revealed  by  the  Picayune,  roused  the  indignation 
of  the  entire  community  and  brought  forth  the 
reforms  in  the  leper  management  which  have 
redounded  so  much  to  the  betterment  of  the  condi- 
tion of  these  suffering  outcast  ones,  and  which  cul- 
minated yesterday  in  the  fruition  of  a  cherished  hope 
— the  placing  of  the  lepers  under  the  kind  and  watch- 
ful care  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity. 


hi  Louisiana.  I49 

"  Then  as  the  hour  drew  nigh  for  the  departure  of 
the  steamer,  with  a  full  consciousness  of  the  difficul- 
ties and  pains,  deprivations  and  dangers  of  the  life  to 
which  they  had  pledged  themselves,  they  boarded 
the  vessel,  and  here  the  Picayune  reporter  met  them, 
and  almost  the  first  words  put  to  their  brave  leader. 
Sister  Beatrice,  were  these: 

"  '  Is  there  no  feeling  of  hesitancy,  now  that  the 
critical  moment  has  arrived  and  you  must  leave  all 
those  associations  which  time  has  made  so  dear,  to 
take  up  your  life  among  a  sad,  desolate  and  outcast 
people  ?     Do  you  feel  no  fear  ?  ' 

"  '  Hesitancy?  "  she  inquired,  with  an  heroic  chal- 
lenge in  her  soft  eyes.  'Why  should  a  Sister  of 
Charity  hesitate?  Are  we  not  pledged  to  a  life  of 
self-sacrifice  and  devotion  to  humanit}-  ?  And  asso- 
ciations ?  Dearer  ties  were  broken  long  ago  to  follow 
the  voice  that  called  from  within  to  higher  things — - 
and  ' — she  faltered,  '  you  spoke  of  the  sad  and  deso- 
late ?  An  experience  of  twenty-two  years  in  a  charity 
hospital  has  brought  me  face  to  face  with  so  much 
sorrow,  so  much  suffering,  that  I  think  even  in  a 
leper  land  no  deeper  chords  of  human  woe  could  be 
sounded.  And  fear? — fear,'  she  smiled,  '  why  should 
we  fear  ?  Is  not  God  watching  over  the  leper  home, 
and  will  He  not  take  care  of  His  children — we  and 
they,  for  they  are  our  brothers — we  are  children  of  a 
common  Father.' 

"'They!'  there  was  a  world  of  meaning  in  the 
word;  it  brought  up  the  picture  of  loathsome  diseased 
beings  whom  the  world  had  shunned,  and  whom,  for 
fear  of  contagion,  the  law  confines  to  a  common  iso- 


150  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Ch2irch. 

lated  home.  And  thither  these  brave  women  were 
going — without  a  fear,  without  one  tear  of  regret — 
and  they  lovingly  called  them  '  brothers. '  That 
word  struck  the  keynote  of  the  line  of  duty  they  had 
laid  down  for  themselves.  With  such  sentiments 
animating  their  hearts,  we  who  have  worked  and 
prayed  for  the  amelioration  of  the  lepers'  condition 
may  rest  secure  they  are  in  safe  and  trusted  hands, 
and  loving  hearts  have  assumed  this  trust  as  a  call 
from  above.  And  so  it  was  as  the  reporter  went  from 
sister  to  sister;  every  face  wore  a  smile,  every  lip 
echoed  a  joyous  note;  one  would  have  thought  they 
were  going  to  a  pleasant  reunion  of  home  and  friends, 
so  happy  did  they  seem.  And  those  from  the  various 
houses  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity  in  New  Orleans  who 
had  come  to  bid  them  good-bye  had  only  one  regret 
— :that  they  were  not  going  too — for  when  the  cry 
went  up  that  the  Sisters  of  Charity  be  asked  to  take 
charge  of  the  lepers,  from  every  community  came  the 
volunteer  answer:  'I  am  ready  and  anxious  to  go.' 
Those  who  were  finally  chosen  were  looked  upon  by 
their  sisters  as  privileged  beings,  for  the  more  painful 
and  difficult  the  mission  the  more  it  is  sought  and 
prized  by  these  women  who  left,  all  to  follow  Christ. 
"  Mr.  Joseph  Reynes,  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  the 
Lepers'  Hospital,  and  Mr.  Phelps,  of  the  Board  of  Di- 
rectors, were  present  to  see  the  sisters  off.  Mr.  Phelps 
was  very  enthusiastic  at  the  consummation  of  a  much- 
cherished  plan.  '  We  will  do  better  work  now,  and 
it  will  not  be  long  before  we  will  have  gathered  in  all 
the  lepers  scattered  throughout  the  State.  There  are 
at  least  one  hundred  lepers  in  Louisiana — some  hiding 


Ill  Lo7cisiana.  15I 

away  where  the  law  cannot  find  them.  We  have 
thirty-one  in  the  Indian  camp;  as  soon  as  it  becomes 
known  that  the  Sisters  of  Charity  are  actually  there, 
the  others  roaming  at  large  will  take  confidence  and 
come  into  our  retreat.  The  very  name  of  the  Sisters 
of  Charity  implies  confidence — and  that  is  what  we 
need  in  our  work.  The  board  alone  could  not  inspire 
this.  The  Sisters  of  Charity  can.  We  rejoice  at  our 
success  in  getting  such  able  members  of  the  order. 
The  sisters  will  be  in  entire  control  in  the  household 
management,  and  everything  except  prescribing  for 
the  patients,  for,  of  course,  the  resident  physician 
must  attend  to  this.  No!  there  is  no  danger  of  their 
contracting  the  disease  except  by  inoculation.  But  it 
requires  heroism  to  go,  and  the  sisters  have  that — the 
work  requires  love  and  devotion  almost  superhuman, 
and  the  sisters  have  that,  too.  The  board  is  de- 
lighted, and  in  a  short  time  we  intend  to  go  before  the 
lycgislature  for  a  greater  appropriation,  and  will  have 
the  best  kept  leper  home  in  the  country.  The  sisters 
will  help  the  board  to  accomplish  this.' 

"At  this  juncture  a  large  delegation  of  gentlemen 
boarded  the  vessel  and  respectfully  approached  the 
sisters. 

"  '  Oh,  they  are  members  of  the  press,  I  suppose,' 
said  Sister  Beatrice. 

"  '  No,  sister,'  answered  one,  who  for  the  moment 
acted  as  spokesman  for  the  delegation.  '  We  are  only 
a  delegation  of  lay  Catholic  gentlemen,  and  we  have 
come  to  bid  you  God-speed  in  your  mission.' 

"  '  Thank  you,'  answered  the  sister,  deeply  touched, 
and  then  Sister  Agnes  and  Sister  Mary  Jane,  of  the 


152  Leprosy,  and  the  Charity  of  the  Chicrch. 

Charity  Hospital  and  Louisiana  Retreat,  respectively, 
came  forward  and  presented  the  gentlemen  to  the  de- 
parting nuns.  The  delegation  was  largely  composed 
of  members  of  the  Society  of  St.  Vincent  de  Paul  and 
the  Society  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  other  prominent 
laymen. 

"And  then  the  gong  sounded,  the  gentlemen  with- 
drew, and  quietly  took  up  their  position  on  the  wharf 
at  the  vessel's  moorings.  The  delegation  of  nuns 
who  had  come  to  bid  God-speed  to  their  sisters  said  to 
each  in  turn  as  they  pressed  their  hands,  perhaps  for 
the  last  time,  'Good-bye.  God  bless  you.'  And 
even  then  in  this  last  leave-taking  there  was  no  shrink- 
ing, no  hesitancy ;  they  had  taken  up  the  work,  they 
would  follow  it  to  the  end.  Sister  Agnes  and  Sister 
Mary  Jane  remained  on  board  to  accompany  the  sis- 
ters to  their  new  home  and  see  them  installed.  The 
other  sisters  descended  the  stairway  and  took  up  their 
places  on  the  landing  to  watch  the  vessel  steer  away. 
And  then  the  last  bell  sounded,  the  ropes  were  hauled 
in;  and  the  Paul  Tulane  started  toward  its  destina- 
tion. With  uncovered  heads,  silently,  reverently,  the 
men  ashore  looked  upward  at  the  little  band  of  Sisters 
of  Charity.  They  stood  on  the  deck  waving  their 
handkerchiefs  smilingly  at  their  sister  group,  who 
looked  with  prayerful  hearts,  perhaps  for  the  last 
time,  upon  their  retreating  figures.  Then  a  waving 
of  hats  and  handkerchiefs  went  up  from  the  gentle- 
men. It  was  something  of  the  tribute  that  a  hero  re- 
ceives when  he  goes  forth  with  deathless  courage  to 
battle  to  the  end,  and  wrest  victory  in  a  cause  that  is 
all  but  lost.     And  were  they  not  heroines,  those  wo- 


171  Louisiana.  153 

men  that  were  going  forth  to  battle  in  a  hopeless 
land?  And  the  evening  Angelus  rung,  while  far  in 
the  east  gleamed  the  last  lingering  ray  of  the  setting 
sun.  It  rested  like  a  parting  benediction  on  the  little 
band  of  Sisters  of  Charity,  and  the  last  glimpse  of 
them  was  the  smile  on  their  faces  as  they  turned  their 
eyes  toward  the  leper  land. 

"Coming  down  Canal  street,  wrapped  in  many 
thoughts,  the  reporter  met  Archbishop  Janssens. 

"  'Well,  L  have  seen  the  Sisters  of  Charity  depart- 
ing for  the  leper  settlement.  Are  they  not  heroines?' 
said  the  reporter. 

' '  '  From  your  standpoint,  yes, '  said  the  archbishop. 
'  But  not  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Sister  of  Charity. 
The  great  act  of  heroism  for  her  is  when  she  makes 
her  vows;  what  follows  afterward  is  merely  the  natural 
consequence  of  those  vows  of  obedience  and  self-sac- 
rifice. These  sisters  who  are  going  to  the  leper  set- 
tlement would  disclaim  the  title  of  heroine;  they  are 
working  for  the  love  of  God.  They  see  no  heroism 
in  the  self-sacrifice  and  devotion  which  they  have 
made  the  rule  of  their  lives.' 


CONCLUSION. 

Just  as  I  am  closing  these  pages,  the  following  tel- 
egram appears  in  the  columns  of  the  daily  press  : 

I.EPROSY   IN   MONTREAL. 

"Montreal,  Sept.  30. — Leprosy  in  its  worst 
form  exists  in  Montreal.  Lee  Tung,  a  Chinaman, 
who  died  of  a  mysterious  illness,  has  been  found  to 
have  been  a  victim  of  it.  An  inspection  of  all  Chi- 
nese boarding  and  lodging  houses  and  stores  has  been 
ordered. ' ' 

Similar  telegrams  appear  now  and  then  which  con- 
clusively proves  that  leprosy  is  not  some  disease  of 
past  ages  or  one  that  only  thrives  in  far-away  lands, 
but  is  a  dread,  mysterious,  loathsome  monster,  of 
whose  origin  little  is  known,  whose  deadly  grip  sci- 
ence has  never  yet  been  able  to  more  than  loosen  for 
a  moment,  but  which  has  always  afterward  tightened 
with  a  closeness  which  neither  wit  nor  power  nor 
device  of  man  has  ever  been  able  to  relax,  and  where 
shall  the  victims  turn  for  help  when  stricken  with 
this  "curse  of  God?"  They  must  watch  their  life 
slowly  ebbing  away,  their  bodies  wasting  away,  piece 
by  piece,  joint  by  joint,  shunned  by  all,  revolting  to 
sight  and  smell,  from  whom  men  fly  in  pitying  hor- 
ror, whose  very  shadow  is  avoided,  whose  name  is 
unclean  !  unclean  !  their  lot  is  the  most  awful  that 


Conclusion . 


155 


can  be  conceived.  Of  this  world,  yet  denied  associa- 
tion with  all  but  lepers  like  themselves,  what  an 
awful  curse  ?  But  lo  !  Christ's  charity  is  not  dead — 
He  lives  again  in  the  person  of  his  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, and  the  Gospel  is  fulfilled  that  the  lepers  are 
cleansed — washed  as  to  their  bodily  sores,  purified  as 
to  their  souls  with  the  sacraments  of  the  Church. 
Father  Damien  is  dead,  the  sisters  die  one  by  one, 
and  yet  the  work  goes  on,  the  ranks  fill  up,  recruited 
from  the  great  army  of  Christian  soldiers  onward 
marching.  Men  and  women  die,  priests,  brothers 
and  sisters  die,  but  as  long  as  leprosy  exists,  God's 
charity  will  touch  with  its  coal  of  fire  the  hearts  of 
men  and  women,  and  they  will  nurse  and  console 
and  watch  and  clean  and  wash  and  bandage  the  lep- 
ers, whether  it  be  amid  the  islands  of  the  balmy 
South  Sea,  where  the  Pacific  woos  to  sleep,  or  amid 
the  Indies,  where  the  odor  of  lemon  and  orange  and 
date  refresh,  or  amid  the  ice-bound  coasts  of  Iceland 
and  New  Brunswick,  where  dread  winter  holds  per- 
petual sway. 


A.M.D.G. 


